100 Trick Repertoire Redux: Part Two

I ended the previous post in this series with the statement that my next post would contain, “my current way of maintaining my 100 Trick Repertoire in a manner that keeps the tricks fresh in my mind while minimizing the time I need to spend practicing.”

That’s going to be the focus of today’s post.

I’m not someone who likes practicing. One of the first things that made me feel like I didn’t fit in when I was spending time with other magicians happened at a small magic convention I attended as a teenager. There was a group of magicians that I didn’t know having a conversation that I had somehow wormed my way into. At some point they mentioned a magician—likely someone well known in magic circles, but not anyone I knew of at the time—and one of the guys was saying how this magician practiced the bottom deal or the pass or something for hours a day for years. And I looked around and I was like, “Heh… what a dork.” All their eyes turned to me. I soon realized that wasn’t the point they were making when they were like, “Well, now his pass [or maybe his bottom deal] is invisible. That’s what you have to do.” And I was shamed into agreeing with them and quickly backpedaled like a total pussy. “Oh yeah, definitely,” I said. “You have to.”

But now I feel no shame about thinking that practice sucks. I mean, if you find working on sleights and moves to be meditative or fun, then that’s great, knock yourself out. But if you don’t, then you just need to practice enough to keep your working repertoire fresh and at the top of your mind.

Of course, this might not be true for you if your goals are different than mine. If you want to be a world-class card cheat, then you’ll need to put in a lot of work. If you want to have a premier manipulation act, then you’ll need a lot of practice. If you want to be a master coin magician, that’s going to require you to devote a ton of time rehearsing in front of a mirror.

But I don’t think of those things as goals of the amateur. Those are professional ambitions, or at least magician-centric magic achievements. Myself, and most of the amateurs that are drawn to this site, are just looking to use magic in a way that keeps themselves and the people they perform for interested and entertained. And that doesn’t require a ton of traditional “practice.” Yes, you need to master the moves required for the tricks you want to perform. But you can come up with a full 100 Trick Repertoire of strong magic that requires no moves, if you’re so inclined. So the minimum amount of time needed to master sleights is really up to you.

Similarly, a magician performing in social situations is usually not going to want to have a full script memorized by heart. She may have some beats she knows she wants to hit during her performance. But memorizing a few beats is much less of a time commitment than memorizing pages of scripting and trying to keep that in your long-term memory.

The nice thing about being an amateur magician performing in social situations is that it doesn’t require a huge time investment to do it well. Rigidly sticking to a script you memorized word-for-word is not valued in social situations. And, in my experience, the type of magic that requires the most amount of practice, is often the type of magic that goes over most poorly in casual environments. I’m pretty well convinced that I could take a mildly-charismatic non-magician and teach him three tricks/presentations over the course of an evening and put him up against any FISM winner doing his card manipulation act that he spent 12 years perfecting, and have them each perform for 15 minutes at a house party and 95+% of the audience would prefer my guy.

Spending 100s of hours on a center-deal will provide you few rewards when performing casually.

What is rewarded in social performing is having a large repertoire and being able to nimbly present a wide variety of interesting moments to people depending on the situation

Building up that repertoire does require a lot of time spent researching tricks and learning the methods and coming up with some presentational angles for them. But there’s no hurry to do that.

Once established, I believe you can maintain a large repertoire—even one with 100 tricks—in just a few minutes a day on average.

The way to do this is to not have a set frequency for how much you practice your repertoire. Instead you want to focus your time on the tricks that are giving you issues, and not waste too much time on those that are second nature to you.

In order to handle this automatically, I use the concept of “spaced repetition.” This is a way of learning and remembering things that automatically focuses on things that are new and/or difficult for you.

I use a program called “Anki” to manage my repertoire practice. It’s a flash-card program that uses spaced repetition. I’m not going to walk you through how to use the program, because that sounds boring to me and you can figure that out in other places. But I’ll tell you how I use it for this particular purpose.

On the “front” of the “flash-card,” (I’m using quotes because these aren’t really cards and there isn’t really a “front,” there’s just a particular field you fill in with information) I put the name of the trick.

On the “back” of the card, I input the following things:

1. The set-up for the trick (if there is one)

2. The most basic steps to the trick.

3. Any presentational ideas or patter lines I want to make sure to include when performing.

So, I’d input the information in the program like this:

And I would create a different card for each trick in my repertoire. Those individual cards form a deck. And I practice my repertoire by opening the app on my iphone, going to that “deck” and practicing whichever card(s) it gives me for that day.

It will provide me with the front of the card by itself at first. So it will just give me this:

So that tells me to practice the Ambitious Card. I’ll run through the routine quickly, making sure I have all the beats down.

When I’m done (or if I get stuck), I’ll tap the screen to see the back of the card.

You’ll notice there are four buttons at the bottom of the screen.

If I screw the trick up or I can’t remember the set-up or whatever the case may be, I’d hit the red button and the card would go back into today’s stack to be done again.

If I got through the trick but it required more thought or effort than I would want it to in a real performance, I’d hit the orange button that says “Hard” and this card would come back into the stack in three days.

If I got through the trick fine I’d hit the green button and the trick would come back into the stack in four days.

For the purposes of practicing my repertoire, I don’t use the blue button.

The thing to understand is that the time periods associated with the buttons aren’t static. They change based on how well you’ve done with that card over time. So pressing the green button in this instance would bring back the card again four days later. The next time it comes around the green button would push the card like 7 days later, then 10, then 14, then 20, and so on. Similarly if you keep barely getting through the trick then it’s going to wait less and less time to bring that card forward each time. And if you screw up the trick or forget how to do it, then it’s going to start you back at the very beginning of the cycle where you’ll do the card today, again tomorrow, then a couple days after that, and so on.

If you’re really on top of a trick, then theoretically the interval between it showing up in your cards to practice on a given day could be pushed to months or years. You probably don’t want that to happen. Even if you know a trick perfectly, it’s good to be reminded of it and run through it once every couple months or so. So you’ll probably want to set the “max interval” for cards in your Repertoire Deck to two or three months at the most. That way you’re touching every trick at least 4-6 times per year (and much more frequently if you haven’t already mastered them).

One thing to keep in mind is that you don’t want to dump all your tricks into this program at once. If you do that, then all the cards in your practice database will be on identical intervals and tomorrow you’ll have 100 tricks you have to practice. Instead what you want to do is add one trick a day (if your repertoire is already established) or if you’re currently building your repertoire, then just add new tricks to this as you identify them. (I still wouldn’t add more than one per day.)

Once a day I fire up the app and run through the flash cards it has for me to process that day. It’s only a few cards at most. I’ll go through each trick and then hit the button to designate if I need to do the trick again, if it was hard, or if it went good. And that’s pretty much all there is to it, I think.

To be clear, I only use this program to help me practice. While I keep a barebones outline of the effect on the flash card, that’s just to be used as a quick reminder. The full catalog of my repertoire with all the details and information for each trick is in my Notion database, which I described in a couple of posts last year.

Dear Jerxy: Audience Response

Dear Jerxy: Something occurred to me after your newest post [Wednesday’s post]...it's about what your friends think of all this crazy magic stuff. I don't remember if you've written about it in detail. I remember a few stories about specific tricks you've done, but not the overall strategy.

Have you ever talked to your friends about what they thought as they went through the process of a trick? Can they tell you when they realized your latest crazy story was actually a trick? Do they enjoy going along with you on your flights of fantasy? Do you end up having them bring a friend along because they think it'll be fun, and the friend later said, "That guy was interesting...is he like that all the time?!"

And do you spin ridiculous or incredible BS when you're not doing a trick? Just to make them laugh? (And blur the lines of when you are actually in a trick?)

Stumped in San Mateo

Dear Stumped: Okay, I’ll take this piece by piece (and not completely in order)…

“Have you ever talked to your friends about what they thought as they went through the process of a trick?”

There are a number of people in my life that I will perform for and "break down the game film" with, so to speak. But those are people who are usually seeing a trick in a much more stripped down, basic presentational style. With them I'm trying to get their thoughts on the fundamentals of the trick and to see if they were fooled and to see if there are any potential "easy answers" I can address in future performances.

But I don’t really discuss what's happening presentationally too much. I will ask people direct questions about the science of a trick, but the feedback I collect on the artistry of a trick is done more indirectly, just through observation.

There are a few reasons I don't break down presentations with people:

1. I have a pretty good understanding of what concepts and ideas are generally interesting. And I have a pretty good understanding of what concepts are specifically interesting to my friends. I have friends who are into more mystical stuff, friends who are into psychology, friends who appreciate absurdity, friends who are into the supernatural, and so on. And I make sure to pay attention and note these things so I can tailor routines to them without having to ask if this is something they’d be interested in.

2. The people I perform for don’t know about this site. So while it might be natural for me to ask them if they have any idea how a trick was done or if they were fooled by a particular element of the trick, it wouldn’t make a ton of sense for me to ask them, “And did you like the way the experience slowly morphed from the real conversation we were having into the trick? Or would you like more of a demarcation?” They don’t expect me to be analyzing the effect more so than “were you fooled?” So while we’ll sometimes look at presentational things in the focus-group testing, I don’t do so with my friends. I’ll just make my own notes on their reactions.

3. Their enjoyment (or lack thereof) should be evident. When you see a movie with a person, it makes sense that afterwards, as you’re leaving the theater, you’ll turn to them and ask, “What did you think?” Because for the past 2 hours you’ve been looking at a screen, not at them, and you haven’t been talking to each other. But if—after having sex with someone—you turn to them and ask, “Was it good for you?” you are the cliche of an idiot, because that’s not something you should have to ask. It’s the same thing with this type of magic.

Now, I understand that if you’re doing a 2 minute ace assembly routine, it’s not always 100% clear if they enjoyed it. But with an effect/routine that’s longer, more interactive, more conversational, and more immersive for the spectator, you should be able to pick up on their level of enjoyment as the effect goes on.

4. It sort of breaks the spell. I prefer to let people keep the experience for themselves and file it away in their memory as they see fit. If I start asking too many questions about presentational techniques, then I can’t use those same techniques later. And if I ask them how they enjoyed the effect, then it becomes this thing to be evaluated and assessed. And likely they will think of it as something I’m going to do for other people. That’s not how I want them framing the experience.

“Can they tell you when they realized your latest crazy story was actually a trick?”

Maybe. But it’s never really been something I asked about or was concerned about. As long as they know it’s a trick at some point, then I’m fine with it. My preference is that they gradually become certain it’s a trick and aren’t 100% sure until the climax, but that will all depend on how crazy the premise is.

“Do you end up having them bring a friend along because they think it'll be fun, and the friend later said, ‘That guy was interesting...is he like that all the time?!’”

No. I don’t do anything too strange for people who aren’t on board. And magic is such a small part of my interactions with people. I wouldn’t just pop in with a stranger, show them something really bizarre, and then pop out of their lives.

“And do you spin ridiculous or incredible BS when you're not doing a trick? Just to make them laugh? (And blur the lines of when you are actually in a trick?)”

Not really. Not unless I’m with friends who are into bullshit for the sake of bullshit. Some of my actor and comedian friends are that way. They’re into “bits” and random nonsense. But that’s not really my personality.

Part of the reason people buy into the immersive style of presentation is that they’ve learned from past performances that there’s going to be a payoff. The magical payoff is what makes it worth investing in the story. But the story also strengthens the magical payoff.

The two are intensely more powerful together than the some of their parts.

Here’s an example:

All payoff, little story: “I’m going to knock that book over with the power of my mind.” Book falls over.

All story, no payoff: “What time is it? 9:59? Every night at 10pm, the ghost of my grandma visits me. This is the time when she used to tuck me in to bed when I was a kid. There she is! Hi Grandma!” And you just pretend like you’re seeing a woman who’s not there.

Story and payoff together: “What time is it? 9:59? Every night at 10pm, the ghost of my grandma visits me. This is the time when she used to tuck me in to bed when I was a kid. There she is! What is she doing? Oh… she’s going for the book she used to read me as a kid. What are you doing, Grandma? You can’t touch the book. You’re dead, grandma. You can’t move a b—.” The book falls over. You jump back. “What the fuck just happened!”

The story gives the payoff some meaning. And knowing their will be a payoff gets people invested in the story in a way they wouldn’t be if they just thought it was random BS or nonsense. This—they will have learned from your previous performances—is BS or nonsense that’s going to go somewhere. It’s going to manifest itself in some amazing or cool or interesting way.

Which loops me back to an earlier question:

“Do they enjoy going along with you on your flights of fantasy?”

Yes. I wrote in a post years ago about how I track reactions to effects. I track both the intensity of their initial reaction, and then how long after the effect they bring it up to me. And what got me really tuned into the immersive style of performance was noticing how much stronger and longer lasting the reactions were when the trick served as a climax to some kind of interesting or fantastical story. I didn’t choose this style of magic because I had some innate desire to perform this way. It was solely dictated by the response from the spectators.

The thing is, all magic tricks are “flights of fantasy.” The only question is whether the fantasy is going to be about you and your powers, or about something potentially more interesting (or at least more varied).

I wrote about this a bit in the last book, so I’ll end today’s post with an excerpt from that.

From the “Your Audience” chapter in HBB

Sometimes, when I talk to people in magic about focusing less on individual tricks and more on [this style] of performing, I will get feedback like this:

“Sure, it would be nice to perform like that. But you hang around artists and creative types who are more willing to go along with that sort of thing. I work in the corporate world [or “I work with blue-collar guys”]. I don’t think they’d be as accepting of that type of performance.”

Sorry, I don’t buy that. I think it’s just an excuse to not try something different. 

It’s kind of like saying, “What am I doing for my wife’s birthday? Oh, she doesn’t like romantic gestures. I got her a new mop and we’re going to watch a movie on Netflix.” You’ve convinced yourself your wife doesn’t like to be romanced (and maybe she has helped convince you of that) because, in the past, you haven’t done a good job of delivering that type of experience to her. Now, you may be married to someone who doesn’t like the typical romantic gestures. But almost everyone likes to be romanced, in the sense that they like gestures that makes them feel loved, valued and special, and that show you were thinking of them. If you’re with someone who doesn’t like when you make them feel that way, then you are with someone who doesn’t like you. Get out of that relationship.

Similarly, if you think the people in your life don’t want to see something more engaging or interesting than a traditional magic trick, you’re just telling yourself something to justify your laziness. 

Nobody turns down the opportunity to see something fascinating unless they think you have some weird alternative motive for showing it to them. If they sense this is just meant to be a fun interaction, they’ll certainly be interested in seeing it. Who wouldn’t? 

Now, there are certainly some people who aren’t into anything magic-related. And those people wouldn’t make a good audience. But if you think they’re at least willing to see a card trick, then they will definitely be even more willing to see something more immersive. 

I’ll prove it to you. Find the person you think is least receptive to this sort of thing and say to them, “I’d like to show you something. Well, actually, I have two things I want to show you. Which would you like to see: A card trick? Or [now you look over your left then right shoulder to make sure no one is listening] this weird wish-granting stone a leprechaun gave me?”

If he thinks you’re trying to convince him of the reality of a wish-granting-stone-giving leprechaun, he’ll probably think you’re a lunatic or a dork. But if he takes it in the spirit in which you intend it, then he’ll want to see what the hell you’re going to do with this crazy stone.

Everyone who sees magic wants to be amazed by the more charming, more incredible presentation. They want to get lost in a world that is stranger and more mysterious than they know the real world to be. Only a magician would think, “No. No. The only fantasy they want to indulge in is that I’m super special.”

The Jerx False Shuffle

Follow along with me. Take a deck in overhand shuffle position. Run five cards singly. Shuffle off. Run three cards. Toss half the deck in one chop and hold a break between the packets. Shuffle off. Cut at the break then shuffle, running the last three cards singly. You will find that the deck is back in its original order. If it didn’t work out, you screwed something up. Keep trying. Don’t read on until you get it to work.

Okay, I’m kidding. Actually, don’t do any of that.

Instead, shuffle the cards any way you like and set the cards on the table.

Talk to your friend(s) for a little bit.

Accidentally knock the deck off the table.

Have your friend help you pick up the cards. In the process of gathering the cards and settling back into your seat, switch the deck for a stacked deck.

After working on a lot of different false shuffles over a few decades now, I’ve come to the conclusion that, for me, the best false shuffle is a deck switch.

Obviously that’s not going to be the best option for every situation. It’s not a great option for when you need a false shuffle in the middle of a trick. But in the cases where I would normally start a trick with a false shuffle, I now almost always use a deck switch instead.

Here is my reasoning:

If you do a false shuffle poorly it will be spotted by the spectators.

If you do a false shuffle too casually it may be forgotten by the spectators.

And even if you do an excellent false shuffle and bring your audience’s attention to the fact that the cards are mixing, they will still not be convinced of that fact once the climax hits.

Think of it this way. Imagine you’re watching a magician. He has a deck of cards. In which scenario would you be most convinced that he didn’t know the exact order of the cards:

After one year of him shuffling the deck

or

After three seconds of you shuffling the deck

The answer is obvious. And it’s obvious to laypeople. They may not necessarily conceptualize it in these words but I think there is almost an instinctual understanding that if we’re creating a situation where the order of the cards being unknown to the magician is important, then there’s no reason why the magician should be the one to shuffle the cards.

This is normal human logic for anyone who is aware of the concept of a “false shuffle” (which most laypeople are).

This is why I’m now a deck switch man. Let the cards be mixed outside of my control, then switch in the stacked deck. I will still use some false shuffles after that point, and in the middle of the routine, but I need the audience to know we’re at least starting with a genuinely mixed deck.

I came to the “deck switch > false shuffle“ conclusion a few years ago, but it took me a couple more years to really understand the key to making that switch as imperceptible as possible.

The truth is, if I give someone a deck to shuffle and they do so, and I take it back and switch it and then I do something that can easily be explained by me knowing the order of the cards (a story-deck trick, for example), then a good portion of the audience will be suspicious that the cards were switched.

But I’ve found I can greatly reduce people thinking a deck was switched if the cards are shuffled (or mixed or otherwise disorganized) in some way before the notion of me showing them a trick comes into play. You see, if I say I’m going to show you a trick, and start by having you mix up the deck, then it suggests I have some way of dealing with the fact that you just mixed up the deck. So I think that brings to mind a switch between the mixing and the magic.

Instead, I want the spectator to have the understanding that this is a fully mixed deck, And then, at some point later, I want to start a trick with it. The shuffling isn’t part of the trick. But still the deck is known to be in no particular order.

So the deck of cards might fall to the floor. Or we might have just used the deck for a card-game. Or maybe I gave the spectator the deck and asked her to show me a card trick. And then after one of those situations I switch the deck. Wait a few more moments and only then do I start the trick.

When I choreograph the moment like that, I find the people I perform for to be the most fooled and the idea of a switch of the deck almost never comes up.

(And to save me some emails, I don’t have a set deck switch. I just casually handle the deck while talking (before the trick has started) and at an opportune moment I drop it into my lap while coming up with the other one. Or I switch it while adjusting my chair. Or something like that. I don’t need something that holds up to scrutiny because it happens before they know to scrutinize. If you need a burnable deck switch, this download from Ben Earl looks pretty good.)

Spectator Belief and The WYW Book Club

Today’s post is going to hit on a few different ideas, but the inspiration for the post were a couple emails I received a little while ago.

[First e-mail]

So I finally tried out DFB [Digital Force Bag] in a very non magician-centric way. I placed a book in a sealed envelope, then got home, told my mom I'd gotten a package in the mail that had no return address, and left it on the table. Then I told her I'd made a list of books to read and I needed her help choosing one, I forced the book, then we talked some more, I opened up the envelope to see what it was and.....it was the book. She couldn't believe it, best reaction I've ever had to a trick, and she's seen it all! I played it straight and didn't tell her it was just a trick, and she tends to believe in connections and coincidences, she made me swear it wasn't something I'd organized. Anyway, now I'm not sure whether to admit to anything or let her believe there was some sort of crazy coincidence/connection thing. I guess I feel a bit guilty, but also it's not anything really bad to be believing in.

[Second e-mail]

A follow up: I think there has to be more of a premise than "hey I got a random package", to make it clear that it's all meant to be taken as fiction, something more unbelievable maybe...but then I'm not sure if the lines between the trick and reality would be blurred enough so the spectator can engage enough with it. This is definitely stuff you've written about before, it's just the first time I experience it firsthand. —ML

Yeah, I think you figured it out. What you were missing was a story. You essentially just gave her the coincidence. So, of course, she’ll react to this as if it’s just a crazy coincidence. As you saw, this generated a really strong reaction. If the only metric that mattered to you was getting strong reactions, then orchestrating moments that seemed incredible AND real AND weren’t focused on you and your power would be the way to go.

But there are two main issues with this strategy.

The first issue is: Depending on what types of experiences you’re creating, it’s a least a little ethically questionable, and potentially massively ethically questionable. Personally I don’t have an issue with faking a crazy coincidence for someone. That doesn’t feel “harmful” to me. Because you’re faking something that is real. Coincidences do happen. So as long as you don’t pin that coincidence on something else (e.g., “God sent us this coincidence as a sign!” or, “The power of our connection created this coincidence!”) I’m okay with it.

But that’s one of the few premises I’d be comfortable having a spectator really invest their belief in. The only other audience-centric premises that I’m okay with the spectator believing are the ones that make the spectator feel smarter or more capable than they really are. I know there are purists who would argue against that—and I used to be one of them. But fuck it, I don’t care about that sort of thing anymore. If I can do a trick for someone that’s going to make them feel a little more optimistic or more positive and they want to choose to believe it’s real? I’m okay with that.

I won’t lie to someone about the state of the world just to make them feel better. I won’t use deception to make them think their dead mother is safe in heaven and watching over them, or that they have genuine psychic powers or something like that. But I don’t mind a trick that plays on their sense of belief in themselves in a positive way.

The second issue with trying to create moments the spectator believes are “real” is this: It’s not sustainable. Even if you wanted to always do “audience-centric” material that the audience believed was real, you couldn’t. There just aren’t enough premises that would both feel possible and amazing. And once you’re around when, like, three of these amazing moments happen, it soon becomes clear that you’re orchestrating them. So unless you’re moving town to town like The Incredible Hulk or The Littlest Hobo, it’s going to be obvious that you’re pulling the strings. And when the audience knows what you’re claiming is real isn’t real—whether it’s you saying, “I’m a psychic” or you saying, “The universe is full of crazy coincidences,”—you will seem like a delusional weirdo if you keep pushing the idea that what’s happening is genuine.

That’s where the story of the effect comes into play. Story-centric magic tells the audience that what they’re experiencing is not necessarily intended to be believed and it gives them a reason for why you’re showing it to them other than your own glorification. (I’m not saying the reason magicians necessarily perform is for their own glorification, I’m just saying that’s frequently how it comes off to the spectators if there’s nothing for them to take from the performance other than how clever you are.)

---

So here’s an example of how you could give the same basic effect mentioned above a story (or context).

You have two padded envelopes, each with a book inside, and each addressed to you. You could physically mail them to yourself or you could just have your name on them as if they had been dropped off at your place, or you could print a couple phony mailing labels. However you want to handle it is fine. The return addressee is something like “WYW Book Club.” You place these on your porch so there they’re when you’re coming into your house with someone else. Or just on your kitchen table as if you brought them in earlier.

Either way, when someone else is around, you act like you just received these packages or you just remembered that you got them earlier.

You pick one up, notice the return address. “Oh sweet.” You think to yourself for a moment. “Oh, I hope it’s the new Stephen King book.” You open it up and it is. “Nice!”

The other person may or may not make a comment on the book or your reaction to the book/package. Either way you take the conversation in this direction…

“I love this service. Have you heard of this?” You point to the return address. “The What You Want Book Club? i found it on facebook a few months ago, although I think their page got shut down or they moved it or something.

“It’s kind of cool. I’ve been wanting to read more books but whenever it comes time to pick a new book I can never decide. Do I want to read something dumb and fun? Or do I want to read something smart? And do I really want to read something smart? Or am I just forcing myself to? Or whatever. Even if I know I want to read something for pure entertainment, I get overwhelmed with all the options.

“That’s where this book club comes in. You send them a list of 100 books you want to read. And every month they send you one or two books. And they claim these are the books that you really want to read at that moment. Whether you know it or not.

“It’s nice because you get to make the broad decision of all the books you’re interested in, so you’re not reading anything you don’t like. But then they send you the books based on their own algorithm, so you never have to do the actual choosing yourself.

“And it really does work. Like they really do somehow know what it is you most want to read. I can’t explain it. The first few months I thought I was just kind of retroactively justifying their selection as being something I was particularly in the mood to read. But that’s not the case. I don’t know how they do it, but it’s like spookily accurate.

“Last month my friend called me and he mentioned a book he read recently and loved. It was a book that was on my list, but it wasn’t one I had been thinking about at all. I wouldn’t even have been certain that it was on my list without checking. But after he talked it up I was really excited to read it. And when I opened that month’s package… that was the exact book they sent me. And the thing is, that package was sitting on my table unopened when I had that conversation with my friend. A book I hadn’t thought of in months just happened to be the one they sent me. As if they knew I would have this conversation with my friend. It’s crazy.

“I’ll show you. Look. Here. Hold this.” You give your friend the unopened package to hold.

You turn on your phone. “Let me get my list… Actually, let’s make it completely random. Give me a number between 1 and 100.”

Your friend says 44. You have her open your notes app and go the note that says “Book Club List.”

“What’s at number 44?” you ask.

She scrolls down and tells you, “The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James.”

“Okay,” you say, and nod your head. You pause, then say theatrically, looking to the heavens, “Oh man, I really, really, want to read The Sun Down Motel next!”

You pull your hands back and give a shrug. Could it possibly be that easy?

“Open it,” you say.

They open the package and find the randomly chosen book you just said you wanted. They flip out.

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So it’s the same trick, the same moment of magic, and the same level of impossibility as the trick that was mentioned in the original email. But because it’s embedded in a somewhat fantastical concept, you’re much less likely to run into someone who will truly believe it.

Of course, if this was the very first thing someone saw from me, then maybe they would believe it was real. Or, worse yet, they might think that I wanted them to believe it was real.

But this wouldn’t be the sort of thing I’d perform for people who didn’t know what to expect. This is the type of trick that would fall around Step 8, in this progression of how I get people accustomed to the immersive style of presentation.

What I’m shooting for with this type of presentation is that it starts off relatively normal, but then it slowly gets progressively stranger.

From their perspective:

1. I got a book in the mail.

2. I belong to a book club.

3. It’s a book club where I choose the books I’m interested in, but they make the decision of what book to send next.

4. The book club not only knows “what you want” because you provide them the list of books. But also because they have some “process” or “algorithm” they use that will supposedly pull the exact book you (consciously or subconsciously) want to read next.

5. This somehow seems to work even if you decide on what you want after you’ve received the package in the mail.

6. I can demonstrate this right now.

Now, I’m guessing if I performed this for someone who knows me, then somewhere between 3 and 4, it would dawn on them that there is a decent chance that we are now “in” a trick. Then at 5-6 they would be almost certain of that fact.

My hope is that when the climax of the trick happens and they know for sure it must have been a trick, that they still find themselves being pulled back to the story despite themselves.

So the idea is to take “belief” off the table. Instead, success is measured by the strength of their engagement with the story and the experience of the trick. This isn’t something you can really “measure” but when you get it right you can definitely feel it.

Monday Mailbag #42

Would you mind kicking the tires for me on this new release? It’s called Gossip and it’s a trick where a spectator thinks of a name from a page torn from a celebrity gossip magazine. You can reveal the celebrity like you would with the classic Baby Gag or something like that.

You’ve got me wanting to perform more and this is advertised as an “everyday magic carry,” so it seems like it could be a good option to have on me for casual performing. But as the king of casual performing, I thought I’d get your thoughts before I take the plunge. —CB

Okay, you guys are asking these sorts of questions more and more. I’m fine answering them (assuming I have any thoughts on a given product). But keep in mind, these aren’t reviews. I do proper reviews in my newsletters that the supporters receive. In those I own the products and I’ve tried out the products. So what I write in these posts are just my thoughts based on watching the demos of these tricks. And my thoughts come from my very narrow perspective of social performing in the style I like to perform.

So let me start by saying I think this trick will fool the majority of people and get a decent reaction.

That being said, I do see a number of issues with it. I’ll go from small to large, issue-wise.

The selection procedure: The version shown in the demo requires two people. One to think of an odd number and one to think of an even number. The reason given is he “doesn’t want them to think of the same number.” This rational is used in other effects where two people are choosing something from a list and it’s usually no problem. But here it doesn’t make sense because those numbers aren’t being used to pick from the same subset of items. There’s no reason they couldn’t think of the same number. One number is used to select which list to use and the other to select the item on the list. This will probably fly by most people, but particularly analytical people will recognize this procedure as unnecessary and limiting.

Pocket Space: Carrying around a folded up page from a magazine isn’t too bad. But carrying around the reveals for each possible option as well takes this well past the definition of “everyday carry” for me.

Preparedness vs Spontaneity: “I found this page in a magazine and I ripped it out because I thought it might be interesting to try something with it,” can certainly come off as something that wasn’t overly planned. But once you start pulling out a celebrity baby picture you brought along with you, you’ve gone from “off the cuff moment” to “pre-planned magic trick.” If you’re okay with that, then it’s not an issue. But I’m frequently going for an experience that feels like something we “stumbled into,” rather than something I planned out from the start.

(Both of the two previous issues could be solved by simply not using the baby gag reveal and just revealing the celebrity verbally.)

The Prop: If you’re trying to pass something off as a normal, real-world object, it has to be unimpeachable. If people get a whiff of it being phony, then they’ll just say, “I don’t know how it was done, but it had something to do with that phony thing.” And unfortunately I don’t think this passes the sniff test as being a real magazine page. You’re not going to find a celebrity gossip magazine with a couple pages of the blandest lists you could think of.

Will they have one list in a the corner of a page to fill up space? Yes.
Will they do a feature long list that goes on for many pages and is an excuse to show a bunch of pictures (e.g., People’s 50 Most Beautiful)? Yes.
Will they maybe have a collection of lists of things that are potentially interesting, (10 Shortest Running Sitcoms, 10 Actors Who Were Replaced Mid-Season)? Sure.

What they won’t do is just have a bunch of random lists on the most basic and subjective topics, “Best Looking Men,” “Most Talented Women.” Such lists would mean absolutely nothing to a reader without a bunch of pictures and commentary to go along with it.

So, to me, this is too obvious a prop unless you’re performing for someone who has never seen a celebrity magazine. But in that case you’d be performing it for someone who is the least interested in the subject matter.

Some people don’t really care about that sort of thing. They think, “They already know it’s a magic trick, so who cares if they know it’s a magic prop.” There’s definitely a certain logic to that. But my approach is, “They already know it’s a magic trick. But now let’s try to make them forget that. “ And you do that by having as little as possible—in regards to the props, procedures, and logic of the experience—that feels false. Ideally I want nothing to feel out of the ordinary other than the premise and the moment of magic.

All of those issues noted… I think I can work around a lot of them. And I may end up buying this trick after all. More so for the thinking behind it and the nuances of the method as opposed to the particular premise and prop for this effect.

Here’s what I’d do. I’d write out a bunch of lists on a piece of paper torn from a spiral notebook. “Hottest Babes.” “Coolest Dudes.” “Funniest People.” “Least Favorite Celebrities.” “Celebs I Imagine Have the Longest Dongs.” And so on. I’d tell them I found the page in an old notebook of mine from 8th grade. Apparently I was writing these lists out when I was bored at school.

Then I’d do essentially the same trick, but with the most interesting page from my middle-school math notebook, as opposed to the least interesting page from a generic celebrity magazine.

An argument could be made that the magazine pages are more innocent because they’re not something you made up yourself. But I don’t really know if that’s how it would play out. In either case, it’s ultimately just lists of names. Both are fairly innocent.

Even if I felt the prop provided with this trick was perfect, I’d still probably do the handmade version. I just think it’s more interesting. Would you rather see some goofy lists your friend wrote out when they were 13 and they recently discovered in some old notebook? Or some generic lists from a magazine that he’s carrying around for some reason? And by using lists that have some supposed personal relevance to myself as the performer, I can have some rationale for why I have some intuitive connection to these lists other than just, “I’m a mind-reader.”

If I wanted to do a “baby gag” type ending, I could remove a drawing I ripped “from the same notebook” of the celebrity they’re thinking of.

And then I’d reveal the celebrity’s name on the other side or under a part that was folded over or something like that.

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I think I’ve found the dumbest trick ever. It’s Pi Revelations by David Penn. I didn’t buy it, but this is my understanding of the routine:

1. The spectators create a random four digit number by adding up a bunch of other numbers (including one of their pin codes).

2. They tell you the random number they’ve created and you tell them where in the book it can be found. [Andy’s Note: Just to clarify, that means where in the first 50,000 digits of pi the number can be found.]

3. Applause????

4. You then tell them that you will direct them to where they can find their pin code in Pi, even though they never said it out loud. You tell them to go to a certain page and location in the book and there is their pin code.

5. Amazement??? Confusion???

If you can salvage this trick, I will be a supporter for life. —KD

Let’s be fair. This is not the dumbest trick you’ve ever seen.

I will agree that it’s one of the more convoluted tricks you’ve ever seen.

A good test to know if your trick is too complicated is to imagine your spectator telling someone else about it. Do you really imagine them saying:

“He knew my pin code without me ever saying it… and he knew where it was in Pi !!!!”

That’s like saying:

“He made me chocolate cake… and there was brisket on top!”

Those are two potentially fine things, but what does one have to do with the other?

The first phase of the trick seems to be a demonstration of your memory. Although wouldn’t someone just say, “You memorized pi? Okay, start from the beginning and let’s see how far you go.” I’m not sure they’d be convinced you memorized pi by your ability to find four digit numbers within pi. But I don’t really know. I’ve never tried it.

I’m not sure what the second phase is supposed to be a demonstration of. You’re taking a pin-code revelation, which is strong in its own. And then you’re muddying it by doing the exact same thing you just did in the previous phase. Structurally, it’s a mess.

I’d actually scrap all of that: the memorization, the pin code reveal, and repetition of the performer finding two different numbers.

I’d do this. I’d have the book out. I’d tell people I was planning on memorizing pi, but then I got bored after 6 digits.

“There’s no real reason to anyways. I learned from this guy on NPR that we all have an innate understanding of pi since it comes from circles and circles are the primary foundational and formative shape for humans. The egg. The womb. The pregnant belly. The breast. The nipple. (Well, not for you, Tom. Your mom and her jank-ass titties.) We don’t need to memorize the digits of pi because we know them instinctually."

I’d then demonstrate this fact by having them generate a random number. Once they gave it to me, I’d trace a circle in the air and gaze at it as if I’m sensing something. “Okay, the number 6045 is going to be….let’s see… I’m guessing somewhere like page 30 in that book. Yeah, go to page 30. 9 or 10 lines down. A couple numbers in.” There they would find the number they generated.

End of first phase.

See what I did? Instead of making it a demonstration of memory (which they wouldn’t believe), I made it something crazier (an inborn knowledge of all the digits of pi).

So now instead of them thinking, “He didn’t memorize pi. He must have some way of knowing where to find certain numbers.”

They might just end up thinking, “He doesn’t have an innate knowledge of pi. The son of a bitch probably memorized it!”

Second phase. At this point the method allows me to know where the spectator’s pin code is in the book without them saying it. So what I’ll do is I’ll find that page while casually flipping through the book and talking, and I’ll hold essentially a “pinky break” so I don’t lose the page.

“Here, you try. Think of a number. Did you use your pin number before? And you didn’t tell anyone it did you? Okay, think of that then. Tell me when to stop.”

I’d then force the page with a timing force. Just making sure I end up on it around the time they say stop.

Then I’d force the location on the page with another timing force. “I’m going to run my finger all over the page. Just say stop when it feels right.”

This would be an easy timing force. I probably wouldn’t even do it with the page facing them. Since I “don’t know what number they’re thinking of” it’s not like I can really “cheat” this, from their perspective. Then I’d turn the page towards them. “Did you get it?”

So it starts with me finding a random number. And ends with them finding a secret number—that nobody else knows—somewhere in pi, by just “intuiting” where it was.

I think that would be pretty strong.