Some Junk I Found

Here is some junk I found on the internet while working on some future posts.

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Here's a guy who is trying to explain the concept of sin via the professor's nightmare trick. Because... why not? (Now, is he just trying to cram a patter over the top of a trick that it doesn't apply to? Or is it true that god doesn't differentiate between rapists and people who commit some minor sin? That's fucking moronic if that's the case. Yeah, I'll question god. And if he doesn't like it, may he strike me de

Damn, I died before I had a chance to close the parentheses.

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Zach King with another nice illusion...

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I was doing a google image search for "Joshua Jay" for something dumb I'm working on. If you do that search you get a surprising number of mugshots. But I think my favorite row of results that I came across was this one. (And I do mean came across.) 

I specifically like it because the third pic makes it look like he's miming a blowjob to the fourth pic.

The $10 Peek Wallet

Testing Peeks

I have a number of very strong revelations for peeked information, but I don't have what I would consider to be a perfect peek. I think it's very difficult to know with any certainty what an audience will find suspicious when it comes to a peek. Last year I did some testing where the audience could register as they watched a performance when they thought something fishy was going on. They did this via swiping up and down on an iphone to register their suspicion. Swiping up meant they were skeptical about what was going on, swiping down meant they were believing what they were seeing. It's like those dials they give people to watch the presidential debates and register if they agree or disagree with what the candidates are saying. What we had after this testing was a little seismograph of audience suspicion that we could play along with the performance and see exactly where they were calling bullshit in their minds as they watched the performance. This may seem like a lot of effort to go to, and it was, but I've been on the lookout for a perfect peek for years now and I knew doing this would point me in that direction, or at least let me know what techniques I should avoid. 

The main thing I learned from this testing is that if you want to avoid suspicion you can't ever look in the area where the information supposedly is. This may seem beyond obvious, but many peeks do just that.

For example, putting a card with an unknown word on it in your wallet raised suspicion slightly. If you then re-open that wallet to get something, suspicion goes off the chart. (And this is the exact choreography of a number of peek wallets.) The problem is, unless you draw undue attention to it, the spectator's aren't focusing on the layout of your wallet. So they will remember you putting it in, but when you go back to your wallet they don't remember if you put it in a section that somehow precluded you from seeing the other side, so they'll just assume that's what you're doing.

Similarly, if you tear up a billet with your head clearly facing left and your hands outstretched to the right, there is little suspicion. But if you even glance at the pieces in the process, the action is completely suspect. It was disheartening to watch people be unimpressed by world-class mentalists peeking the word in real time as they tore up the card. Then to watch those same people get fooled by my friend who would tear up the card (eyes tightly closed, head facing the opposite direction), and drop the pieces in the spectator's hands to go flush down the toilet, then take all the time he needed to read the word on the stolen piece while they were in the bathroom.

So that principle, as basic and obvious as it may sound, is what guides me when looking for a new peek. The one you'll read below isn't perfect, but it's one of my new favorites.

The $10 Peek Wallet

A month or so ago, my friend showed up with a new peek wallet. It cost him ten dollars and it was pretty much the dumbest, simplest peek wallet you could imagine. But its simplicity allowed me to come up with what I found to be a very disarming handling for it. 

The wallet comes with The Ultimate Networking Tool. I do not have a clue of what the Ultimate Networking Tool is, but I do know that the package includes this wallet and it's 10 bucks total. What do you have to lose?

I should mention that it's not an actual wallet. Like it doesn't hold cash. It's meant to hold business cards. But it's not unlike the type of wallet I do often use in my everyday life which is designed to hold a few credit cards (I just keep my cash in pocket).

My Handling

You should have your license in the peek area and a couple credit cards and a business card in the wallet.

You take the business card out of your wallet and have your friend write whatever you plan to reveal on it. You're turned away throughout this. When she's done you turn back to her and say, "Hold it between... actually... hand it to me...." And you take the card and put it in the wallet (sliding it under your license and leaving a couple millimeters hanging out so it can be removed easily). 

Justifying the Wallet
People are always looking for a justification for putting the card back into the wallet. I don't know that anyone has found a good reason for this. So instead of giving a rationale (which might come off as bullshitty), you're going to imply one. And since you're not actually stating it outright, there's nothing for your audience to push back against. They're not going to call you out on a rationale that they themselves have concocted in their mind. 

The implication you make is that you were first just going to ask them to hold the card between their hands, then you "decide" to put it in the wallet as something of an extra barrier. You then have her put the wallet between her hands. And then you place your hands on either side of hers. The wallet is now just one of many layers of protection between you and the card. 

What makes this so disarming is that you're handing the wallet in the "peekable" state to your spectator immediately after you put the card in. And getting the peek as you do so. In action this looks like this (except placed onto the spectator's hand, and not your own):

The card is in the wallet, the wallet is between her hands, her hands are between yours. At this point you will act as if you're receiving/reading part of the information. So if she wrote down a name you'll be able to guess the gender or the first initial. And if it's a number you might be able to say how many digits and if it's even or odd. Then you act like you're stumped, that the information isn't coming through as clear as you'd like, and you say something like, "Can you?... actually, no... I don't want to see it." At this point you are going to have your spectator clean up for you. Walk across the room and turn your back to your friend. "Can you open the wallet and pull out the card? Toss the wallet aside, we don't need it anymore." Now you have your friend crumple up the card and hold it in a fist or sit on it or put it in her bra or go outside and bury it. Whatever you want. The point is that the effect ends with the wallet out of play and the card in a completely unreadable position and that's when you do the bulk of the effect.

But Andy, you can't put a peek wallet in the spectator's hands and have them handle it and remove the card.

Sure you can. This handling puts very little heat on the wallet and the likelihood of something going wrong is greatly diminished by the choreography of the effect. Consider:

• There is an implied justification for the wallet.

• It's immediately placed in the spectator's hands once the card is in there. And then it's sandwiched between her hands, meaning there isn't time for her to fiddle around with it.

• People are less likely to suspect an object that you've placed in their hands.

• The wallet is only not sandwiched in her hands once she's given the task of opening it and removing the card. Most spectators are more engaged in following your directions than screwing around at that point.

• The main part of the trick is done after the card is removed from the wallet. And after the card is removed, the wallet is completely examinable. So the only time they can bust you is before the heart of the trick happens, when their guard isn't up as much.

You can test the safety of this without actually doing the trick. Take a bifold wallet and ask your friend to watch you put a card in one of the slots. Then have them hold the wallet between their hands. Then ask them to open the wallet and remove the card. At no point will they turn the wallet over. It doesn't aid in any of those actions. 

And in a worst case scenario, where for some reason they start looking the wallet over rather than opening it and removing the card when you tell them to, here is what you do.

Them: Hey! You can see the card through here...

You: [turning around] What's that? Whoa, hey! Don't show it to me, you dingbat! Just put it in a different slot or something or fold it up and put it in your pocket.

Unlike most peek wallets that have some features that are clearly not normal, with this wallet you're just taking advantage of a fairly standard wallet construction. So even when the card is in peek position, it's not really unnatural and you can easily pass it off as just a mistake if it was noticed. Because the peek itself is so smooth and motivated it draws no attention to itself. The brief moment where you are holding the wallet with the card in it isn't memorable enough for them to zero in on as being the moment where you did what you needed to do.

Again, I don't know what makes this the "Ultimate Networking Tool." (It really should be called the Conjurer's Ultimate Networking Tool -- you know, so people will know it's for magicians. No other reason. None at all.) But at this point in time it is the only peek wallet I have in rotation and it allows an innocent handling that many of the $100 wallets don't.

.ORG

This is going to be some true magic-nerd type shit. Well, not even "magic" nerd, but "organizational" nerd. I'm a queeny little fusspot when it comes to organization. I don't like clutter. And magic produces two types of clutter: actual physical junk and then a kind of clutter of the mind. And I find that both of these things get in the way of me ever actually performing. 

Watching how other people organize has always been motivational to me to get my own shit together. So perhaps seeing my system will inspire you or encourage you to come up with your own system if you don't already have one.

Organizing Ideas

I have too many ideas, and if I don't track them in some way, I forget them. I used to think that was a good enough system itself: don't write anything down and if the idea is good enough, you'll remember it. Like survival of the fittest for ideas. But then I found myself having good ideas, not writing them down, and forgetting them. The only remnant of the idea that remained was the vivid memory of thinking, "Oh, this is a great idea, I'll never forget this." So I decided to establish a very basic system.

The system I use has three components:

1. A notes app on my phone. (I use Vesper)

2. A small physical notebook. (I use something like this.)

3. A documents folder on my computer

The only "goal" here is to get the idea into the physical notebook. But I don't want to always carry around a notebook and a pen. I'll bring it with me if I'm carrying a messenger bag or something, but if I'm just going out, I don't bother taking it with me.

So, if I get an idea and my notebook is with me, I'll write it in there. If my notebook isn't with me I'll write it on my phone in as few words as possible without forgetting what the idea is later. 

Once a week, I douche out the notes app on my phone and write those ideas in the notebook.

I read through the notebooks every now and then, on no set schedule, and when an idea seems worth pursuing I will open a new document for it in Google Docs. Simple.

That's the basics of it. For me it is a system that captures everything, but isn't overwhelming.

Organizing Your Repertoire

Tracking the tricks I know in a spreadsheet may have had the greatest impact on me actually performing for people on a regular basis. If you're like me, you have a ton of effects that you've worked on casually. And you remember them for a little bit, but then you forget the actual workings, and soon you forget the effect even exists. This is why a lot of amateurs end up performing the same three tricks all the time; they're the only ones they remember. Or they don't perform at all. 

I use Google Docs a lot, as you'll see in this post. The reason is because I can access it from anywhere and on any device.

In my Google Docs I have a spreadsheet called "Repertoire." These are the effects I've learned that I want to remember. There are a bunch of different tabs in the spreadsheet. Each tab represents a broad category of performing condition/necessary requirements.

Here are the tabs I have in my spreadsheet:

FASDIU - "From A Shuffled Deck In Use" - These are the effects in my repertoire that require just an ungimmicked, unprepared deck of cards.

Carry On - These are tricks that require me to carry something with me. For example, Double Deception by Mark Mason requires me to have two gimmicked coins on me. Now, I'm not someone who loads up his pockets with shit before going outside. But I may take one thing with me before I leave the house in the morning, especially if I know I'll be hanging out with people that day. And then I kind of rotate my way through this list. I'll continue to take the same item until I perform it, then the next day I'll take the next item on the list.

FASLIU - "From A Shuffled Life In Use" - This is just my way of referring to impromptu effects with normal items that I don't carry with me. Things that don't use cards and that I can get into at any moment.

Wallet - A list of tricks that would make sense to carry in my wallet (e.g., tricks with bills, business cards, etc.). I don't cram a bunch of stuff in my wallet, but I will keep one or two gimmicked items in there and rotate them out as I perform them.

Phone - A list of tricks on your phone or using your phone. There's no reason not to have a couple of tricks you can do with your phone. People used to carry handkerchiefs and we did tricks with them, now we carry phones. And that's why my phone is covered in snot.

Stacked - Tricks with a stacked deck. Not necessarily a full-stack, but any effect requiring a stack that I can't get into in the moment of the effect.

MAD - (Marker and Deck) - Tricks that use just a deck and a marker. 

Gimmicked - Tricks that require a gimmick of some sort and aren't the sort of thing I would carry around with me on a regular basis. (Tricks with gimmicked decks, for example.) 

Special - Tricks, like many of the ones I've written for this site, that are for special occasions. Meaning they require a large investment of time or set-up.

Missing Parts - Tricks I want to work on but I can't at the moment because I'm missing something I need to perform them.

New Ones - Tricks I've identified as ones I want to add to my repertoire but have not worked on yet.

Stage - Effects that I think are good stage effects (for myself or, more likely, other performers I'm working with).

Perfect - Tricks that I think are perfect methodologically, that I can perform flawlessly, and that I have a perfect presentation for. The purpose of this section is two-fold. It allows me to identify tricks that are at the heart of my repertoire and that I would use if I was only going to interact with a person one time and wanted to have a particularly profound effect on them. And by having a section for "perfect" tricks it reminds me to make note of, and work on, the flaws in the other tricks in my repertoire.

Consider - Tricks I haven't decided I want to add to my repertoire but something about them intrigued me and I might want to reconsider them in the future.

If you do something like this, you will end up with different categories than I have because what I think is important to keep track of won't be what you think is important to keep track of. 

I try to practice the tricks in my repertoire once a week. This is just to keep the set-ups and the moves in mind. I don't rehearse a script. I remember the gist of what I will say with each effect. The less my scripting sounds rehearsed the better for my style. To go through everything takes me maybe three hours, but I don't do it in one chunk, I do it throughout the week while I'm watching Dr. Phil or some other garbage. Yes, yes, I know, you need to have dedicated practice sessions to perfect a trick. Fine, I'll give you that. But just to keep the procedures fresh in your mind I find it's enough to just spend a minute or two thinking about the trick or working through it with the props in hand once a week.

Organizing the tricks like this allows me to practice them very rapidly. For the FASDIU ones I just need a deck in front of me. For the ones with a marker and a deck, I just need those two things. The effects that comprise the list of "Carry On" and "Gimmicked" are not only on the same spreadsheet but they're stored together in real life. That way I can work through those effects one right after the other without having to hunt down the props. 

Another spreadsheet I keep has a list of effects I perform across the top and friends I perform for frequently along the side. Then I fill in the field at the intersection of the two if I've performed that trick for that person. Then, if I need to, I can quickly check this spreadsheet on my phone earlier in the evening before launching into that trick later that night and determine if I've done that effect for that person before. You don't want to be like, "You know, the time is right for a once in a lifetime miracle," and have them say, "Oh, you've shown this to me before."

(I don't only perform for women. I just have different spreadsheets for men and women.)

One final bit of organizational porn for you -- both in real life and on a spreadsheet -- is how I keep track of my decks. The first thing I did was get a couple of cassette tape holders. What I have found is that people are more than happy to give you anything related to cassette tapes. Just ask around. Cassette tape storage is not a big concern for people these days, yet they often have these large organizers taking up space in their homes. Most people are happy to get rid of them. And if someone does say, "But where will I put my cassettes?" You say, "In the trash." Because that's the only right answer. 

Anywho, I have a couple of these under my bed. Then, on a spreadsheet in Google Docs, I have the same grid layout and each cell is filled out with what deck is in that slot. So if I need to find a blank deck, I just search "blank" on the spreadsheet, see that it's in the third column, fourth deck down, and then pluck it out of the holder. This may all seem very persnickety, but it has saved me time from opening and closing 50 different card cases to find the ones I want, and I've found it to be faster than labelling the outside of the box and then searching through them.

The purpose of this organization is not just to be a little twat about "everything having a place" or something like that. If you've ever had a perpetually messy room in your house -- a garage, kitchen, or basement -- and then finally cleaned it up and realized you could actually use that space for something, that's the same as this. Getting your shit in order is the first step in doing something productive with it.

I'm About To Blow Your Mind Like It Was A Super Nintendo Cartridge

I love a good interactive magic trick. The ability to reach through the screen and amaze someone in their own home from 100s or 1000s of miles away, that's real magic. 

I created this effect ten or so years ago and posted it on my old blog. At that time there wasn't really an easy way for people to spread the word about it. Since then I've seen a lot of interactive magic tricks blow-up and go viral -- which wasn't even really a concept back when I wrote this originally. I'm almost hesitant to post it because I know it's going to be all over reddit and on boingboing and all over social media and people are going to flip their shit and be like, "So wait... is psychic power real?" And I'll have to direct them to my disclaimer or else people will be sending me emails about healing their grandma's anal palsy with my immense powers. And yeah, that's all going to be a pain to deal with, but sometimes you just want to freak people's beans so bad like I'm going to do with this trick.

Take a look at the picture below. Allow your eyes to scan back and forth along the cards, finally resting on one of them. This is your selection. However, if you'd like, I will give you one chance to change your mind to another card. Go ahead. Do you have a card in mind? Don't forget it. Scroll down the page slowly and you will come to a second picture where your thought of card has completely disappeared. 

Now repeat the magic incantation..

Dear
heavenly
father,
please
allow
the
thought
of
card
to
vanish
from
the
next
picture.
For
once,
do
me
a
solid.
You
were
always
doing
stuff
for
Jesus.
And
why
was
that?
Oh,
because
he
was
your
son?
That's
called
nepotism, 
god.
And
sure,
maybe
Jesus,
like
Rumer
Willis,
is
talented
in
his
own
right
but
you
still
know
you
pulled
some
strings.
I'm
just
asking
you
this
one
favor.
Make
the
thought
of
card
disappear.
Amen.

And shazam! Your card is gone!

If you were amazed, make sure to post this to your facebook and tweet it and send it to your boss on LinkedIn and let your fellow anal palsy sufferers on patientslikeme.com know about it.

The Dick That Fooled Einstein

Effect: You approach a guy and say, "I bet my dick is as long as yours, plus the length of this peanut, and enough left over that when added to the length of your dick it equals eleven inches." When you measure everything out, it turns out to be true.

Method: All you need is a 2 inch peanut and a 13 inch cock. Besides that the trick is self-working.

(This is, of course, a variation on this, the Trick That Fooled Einstein. Maybe you're not packing enough in your underpants to pull it off. But I bring it up only to suggest that there are some presentational possibilities for the effect that exist beyond counting objects that you might want to consider.)

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Friday's post is going to be about organization. Specifically it will be about how I organize my ideas and keep track of the routines in my repertoire. I think the amateur magician needs a good way of tracking effects because -- and I'm going to say something that goes against pretty much everything you hear about how many tricks you should know -- I think the amateur magician should have about 100 routines in his active repertoire.

One of the points I make in The Amateur At the Kitchen Table is that magic is often seen as a performance in casual situations and that's somewhat weird for people. The goal of TAATKT is to try and embrace magic not as a series of distinct performances that you show people but as a character trait that you possess; an ability to manipulate situations in playfully mysterious ways.

It's the difference between knowing 6 jokes really well and being a funny person. If you only know 6 jokes or only know 6 tricks you are limited in the ways you can get into those tricks organically. But with a repertoire of 100 effects you have exponentially more inroads. And this larger "vocabulary" of effects gives you many more opportunities to perform naturally. This isn't about inundating people with tricks. It's about having the right trick when the moment arises.

Book Report #1: Third-Wave Equivoque and the Two New Links Above

Take a look at the menu bar above. You can call me Jimmy Dean because I'm serving you up some hot links. "Buy the Book" will take you to a page where you can order the limited edition Jerx hardcover book. "Want More?" is an area where you can contribute to the site in a number of ways. Nobody needs to. As I say on that page, I'm happy to work on this site in my free time (which will translate to a few posts a week). The purpose of the support page is for people who are interested in there being more content or who want to give back in some way to have the opportunity to do so. 

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I'm going to be giving regular updates on the progress of the book for those who have already ordered it and for those who are considering it. For those who don't fall into either camp, don't bother reading posts labelled "Book Report," because they won't hold any value to you.

Last week I wrote the section of the book that deals with equivoque. You might not think there's much left to be said on the subject, but I think there is a whole equivoque evolution that needs to take place. An equilution? No... an evoloque? Aw, fuck it, I just mean there is third-wave of equivoque technique that I think is on the horizon.

The first-wave of equivoque, that I think we all agree is terrible, is like this: "Point to any two piles. Okay, we'll eliminate them. Point to one more. Okay, that will be the one you keep," etc. etc. I've never actually seen a magician do it like this, but I've seen laymen try and show me a trick with this kind of nonsensical equivoque. It's clearly terrible. The big problem is that the spectator does the same thing (points to a pile) and gets a different result (one time it's eliminated, the other it's selected).

The second wave of equivoque is where we are now. A typical equivoque with four items might look like this:

"Touch any two of these items. Okay. We'll eliminate those. Now hand me either one of the objects that are left. Okay. We'll eliminate that one too. So the object that remains is the orange, yes? And my prediction was the orange." 

This is a little better, but not great. While you've gotten rid of the problem of the same action by the spectator resulting in different outcomes, you've introduced the issue of different actions resulting in the same outcome. Why does touching something eliminate it in one round, and in the next round handing it to you eliminates it? 

Also, there is a lot of unnecessary action. Someone hands you an item and you put it with the discarded items? Why wouldn't you just say "Push another item over with the discarded items," if that was your intention? No middle-man needed.

Equivoque routines have evolved into the spectator doing something meaningless ("Turn over any card.") and the magician giving it some meaning ("Okay, that's your selection."). But when something is "equivocal" it doesn't mean it has no meaning. It means it has multiple meanings. This is what my preferred style of equivoque is based on.

Third-wave equivoque is based on the richness of language rather than the ambiguity of action.

It's about eliminating any element of interpretation on the part of the magician. There should never be a point where you say something like "touch an item," "push two of these towards me," "hand me a card," "imagine two of these cards begin to float in the air," none of that sort of thing. In fact there should be no actions, real or imagined, that need any interpretation at all. 

My thinking on this is based on all the great equivoque work of the past 15-20 years. What I noticed in those pieces was that I would really love one or two sequences in a routine and then I'd think some of the other sequences were pretty weak and amateurish. And what I found was that the sequences I thought were the most fooling were the language based ones as opposed to the ones involving the spectator doing some arbitrary action and the magician then telling him what that meant. So I stole the best parts of all my favorite equivoque routines and used them as the building blocks for my style of equivoque. It's a style that can be done slowly and a style where the spectator does make definitive statements about what she wants to do all along the way. (This, as opposed to second-wave equivoque, which people recommend you do briskly and always use ambiguous language.) 

In the book I demonstrate these ideas with two different equivoque sequences. The first is a simple magician's choice between two items that I use to get into the Hoy Book Test. The second uses equivoque to get down to one card from a full deck of imagined playing cards. Either one of these could be viewed over and over again on video and there would be no evidence of anything other than the spectator dictating what would happen next every step along the way. With these two examples I think the groundwork for this concept will be adequately established, and I look forward to seeing what people come up with to take this idea further.

Variations on the Konami Code

This is going to be a long one. 

The first thing you need to do is familiarize yourself with a trick by Tomas Blomberg called The Konami Code. Actually, it's not a trick, it's a method that can be used to perform all sorts of effects. 

Andi Gladwin and Tomas have kindly provided a pdf of an effect that demonstrates the concept from Tomas' book, Blomberg Laboratories. Read it a time or two until you understand what the effect is. It's not the most intuitive thing to understand in print, but when performed for real it seems perfectly natural and logical. You don't need to understand how it works, just try and visualize what the effect is.

When you're done reading the link below, come back to read the rest of this post.

Konami Code by Tomas Blomberg

Okay, so now you understand one of the effects you can do with this method. Before I go on to describe the context in which I performed that trick that made it extra meaningful for the person I was performing it for, let's take a nice long digression and talk about using the Konami Code in a stage or parlor setting.

---

Kurtnami Code

What follows is a very basic way of using this method for a stage routine. I should warn you that there are about three levels of my bullshit piled on top of the basic method. Feel free to strip that away. You need to be performing for a seated audience of a decent size.

Presentation

You look around on your table for something. You don't find it. You quickly walk off stage then return with a stack of index cards. You do an angry stage-whisper off to the wings of the stage. "Kurt, you idiot, I told you to have these on my table waiting for me."

"Sorry, folks, my assistant Kurt forgot to set these out for me. Ladies and gentlemen, I hold in my hands a packet of index cards. On each index card are instructions. In a moment I will hand this packet off to someone in the audience. These instructions will tell you where to hand the packet next. For instance, it may say 'Hand the packet forward,' or 'Hand the packet to your left.'"

You spread the index cards between your hands, there are 10 white ones and one red card. You begin to shuffle them up.

"Now, the order these cards are read in will determine the path the packet travels and where they end up in this room."

"Think of it this way, if you made a left out of your home, then took the first right, and the first right after that, you'd end up up here somewhere [you indicate a point in the air] But if you go right first, take the next right after that, then the first left, you'd end up down here somewhere. Both paths consist of one left and two rights, but the order is different, so you end up in different locations." 

I would turn my back and kind of mime these two paths in the air from a central point.

I don't actually draw it, I just kind of indicate the movements in the air with my finger. This is a completely optional part of the presentation. Since I've never performed this routine, I don't know if it is helpful or not. I just like the idea of reinforcing the notion that the order the directions are followed will affect the endpoint (which is completely untrue).

"Now, what we are about to do will send these index cards in a random path across the room until one person is left holding the red card. Science would tell us that it's impossible to predict random actions. But wasn't it also 'science' that told us bumblebees can't fly and that man would never run a sub 4-minute mile? Well, if an email my mom forwarded me is to be believed, then yes, these are things that science claimed. Personally, I don't let science tell me what I can and can't do."

"As a green belt in ka-ra-te, I must always be able to predict the movement of my opponent. As my sensei, Howie Friedman, says, 'When someone tries to punch your face [start throwing a slow-mo punch], you must try to move your face so as to not get punched in it [do a slow-mo juke of your head to the right]." Start nodding as if you've just shared great wisdom with your audience.

"Allow me to demonstrate how I've used my psychic brain to accurately predict the movement of these cards through the audience and where they will end up. Prepare to be dazzled."

You rubberband the cards and toss them over your shoulder into the audience and ask the closest person to take them. You ask that person to unband the cards and remove any card at random and to put it in her pocket or purse. You tell her that this card will represent the "final move" once all the other white cards have been used. You then tell her to pass the rest of the cards to the person to her left so we can start the game.

You ask the person who holds the cards to mix them up, remove one, and read it aloud. He does so and reads, "Keep this card and hand the remaining cards to the person directly behind you. And never forget you're a strong black woman who don't need no man."

Onstage you let out a long sigh then start yelling offstage. "Goddamit, Kurt! You brought the wrong cards. These are the ones for the Women's Empowerment Seminar. Did you bring the others? You didn't? Oh, Kurt, you imbecile."

"I'm sorry, everyone. My assistant brought the wrong cards. These cards will work, but I wrote them for a different audience that I'm performing for tomorrow, so the message on them might not apply. Let's just continue."

The guy sitting behind the original person takes the cards and mixes them up. He removes one and reads it out loud. "Keep this card and hand the remaining cards to the person on your immediate right. And girlfriend, don't you forget, no one can make you feel inferior without your permission."

It continues like this, the cards making their way in a random pattern around the room, and people reading off bland messages of encouragement that don't apply to them. Eventually the lone red index card is handed off to someone. You remind everyone that before this started you randomly chose a person by tossing the cards over your head into the audience. That person randomly chose a card to be the "final move" card. Since all the white cards have been used you ask the person to read her card to indicate where the red card's final move should be. Her cards says to hand the card two seats to the left. The red card ends up in the hands of a guy in a green sweater and glasses. You point out that if the woman had chosen a different card then the red card might have moved in a number of different directions and distances on this final move.

"Now sir, I don't know you, correct? You chose that seat at random tonight, yes? Would you be shocked if there was an envelope under your seat -- the only envelope under any seat -- and inside that envelope was a sheet of paper inside that predicted you would be holding the red card? You would? Please, take a look.... It should be there... Just under there...Did it maybe get kicked under a nearby chair?... Kurt, you put it there before the show, right? Oh, what the fuck, Kurt. I'm sorry, could everyone look under their chair? There should be an envelope under one of them."

Everyone looks under their chair. On the opposite side of the audience a woman holds up an envelope, nowhere near where the red card ended up. You look angrily offstage at "Kurt" and then turn back to the woman who is holding the envelope. You say, "Please open up the envelope and read what it says."

She opens the envelope and reads:

"I'm sorry, miss. Kurt gave you this envelope by mistake, please disregard it. It was meant for the guy in the green sweater and glasses who is holding the red card."

Method

This presentation was birthed from a combination of a few different things:

1. Tomas' Konami Code
2. My love of talking to, and being frustrated by, unseen, non-existent people, which is something I've used before in my real life, and in comedic presentations, but not a magic one. 
3. The idea of having a prediction that seemingly predicts a mistake that hasn't yet happened.
4. This time in college when I was really into this girl so I went with her to a meeting of a campus group for minority women. At the start of the meeting we all held hands and had to repeat some oath or something that started with, "I am a beautiful woman of color...." Which is something I still like to say to myself from time to time.
5. The song Penelope by Of Montreal. An amazing, off-kilter, but catchy indie-pop song that provided the wording for the prediction. 

The moves on the cards are as follows:

• Hand the cards to the person two seats to your left
• Hand the cards to the person in front of you
• Hand the cards to the person two seats on front of you
• Hand the cards to the person behind you
• Hand the cards to the person two seats to your left
• Hand the cards to the person on your right
• Hand the cards to the person on your left
• Hand the cards to the person on your right
• Hand the cards to the person behind you
• Hand the cards to the person in front of you

No matter what order these are read in, they will force the person two seats ahead, and three seats to the left of whoever starts out with the pack of cards. Then you just have that person described in a prediction under any random person's chair who is not near the predicted person.

I just chose these movements randomly. You may want to choose different moves and incorporate diagonals and people sitting many seats away (i.e., "Hand the cards to the person 5 seats to your left"). It would depend on how big your audience is. This is a simplified version of the effect in the Konami Code pdf attached above. In that trick the spectator cuts off a random number of cards from a packet. In this case they go through the full packet.

I think that's about all. One nice touch that I think helps sell the "randomness" is tossing the pack of cards over your shoulder to select an audience member. When you do this, you should aim for the person in the center of the audience. (Your starting person, and the person you based the relative position of your prediction on.) If you do this, one of three things will happen.

1. It will land with the person you want to start with. Perfect, you let this "random" person be the starting point and hold the final move card.

2. It will land to the left, to the right, in front of, or behind the person you want to start with. In this case have that person remove the final move card and then say, offhandedly, "And hand the rest to the person on your right [or wherever] so we can start the game."

3. It lands a few seats from the person you want to start with. If this happens, allow that person to take the final move card and then say, "We need to centralize the cards because we need as much room as possible on all sides of the starting point. So could you hand the cards to... hmmm... that person in the blue shirt?" In other words, you just direct them to hand it to the person you want to start with. It's completely logical to want the pack to start in the center, so you lose nothing by doing this.

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The Rehearsal Dinner

Digression over.

Now let's loop back around to the effect in the PDF linked above and I will tell you a story of the perfect context to use it in.

A couple weeks ago I was at the rehearsal dinner for my friend's wedding which was occurring the following day. It was a beautiful evening, the food was great, and everyone was in a joyful mood. In a way I think rehearsal dinners are more enjoyable than weddings. Only the closest people are involved, there's 100 times less stress on the bride and groom, people aren't pathological about everything going "perfect", everyone is more low-key and relaxed, and you're not stuffed in some uncomfortable outfit. 

Tomas had written me a couple days before this event and asked if I had any ideas for the Konami Code. I didn't, but it did inspire me to perform something for the bride at her rehearsal dinner.

When to perform at other people's special events. Never. Don't do it. I mean, it can be done respectfully in rare cases, but I don't trust you to figure them out. Someday I will write a post on this but I think your best bet is to avoid performing unless you were specifically asked to.

After the business of the evening was finished, I sat down at a table next to the bride-to-be.

"I have a gift for you," I said. I told her to hold out her hands and I placed a stack of photos in them. They were individual pictures of everyone from the rehearsal dinner -- the family, the friends, the priest, even the waiters and waitresses. All of them had big smiles on their faces and affection in their eyes.

Buying tip: Seriously, go get yourself a Polaroid ZIP Mobile Printer. It's a little bigger than a cellphone, and there are a ton of magic uses and just regular life uses for a thing like this. 

Just seeing the pictures alone made her tear up a little. There isn't usually a photographer on hand to document the rehearsal dinner, so this stack of photos was unexpected and meaningful to her. And having actual, physical photos of an event that just occurred is one of those non-mysterious but still "magical" things that you should strive to be responsible for in life.

"What is everyone pointing at?" she asked.

"Oh," I said, "I wanted to try something with you. It's an old gypsy tradition that they used to do before weddings."

Procedural tricks. Here's the thing, if you have a trick that involves some kind of process, you're a million times better off referring to it as "an old gypsy tradition" or "a custom among carnie folk" or "an old fortune-telling ritual." Anything that suggests there is a history to what you're about to do and it's not a "magic trick." Especially if you're performing on someone's special day, you want to make it clear that what you're doing is something that's centered around them. And not something meant to express what a talented magician or mentalist you are.

I gave her half of the photos to mix up while I (false) mixed the other half (and palmed in a picture into the force position). We combined our photos together and I mixed them up some more. Then we went through the process of the trick in the pdf. She cut off some of the pictures and mixed them up while I dealt the remaining pictures into a face down grid on the table. Then she dealt out her stack of pictures randomly, following the directions the people were pointing in the photos, until she was out of photos and had landed on one face down picture. I recapped what had happened, that she had shuffled up the pictures, and chose what order to deal them in. And here were all her friends and family pointing her along a particular path that seemed random but led her to one specific picture. I told her to turn it over and it was a picture of her husband-to-be with arms outstretched as if getting ready to hug the person looking at the photo.

And... cue the waterworks. For her and for every other girl who had gathered around.

I asked if I could take one picture of her as well and borrow the other photos for a few minutes. Then about five minutes later I came back with a small photo album, like this one, which was made for these types of pictures. All the photos were now in the book and when you went to the last page there was the picture of the groom with his arms open and below that the bride with her arms outstretched, ready to return the embrace.

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If you have any thoughts on effects using the Konami Code, email Tomas. He has many more ideas that use it in even more intricate and sneaky ways. And I know he's interested in hearing what other people come up with as well.

Thanks to Tomas, Andi, and Vanishing Inc for sharing the excerpt from Blomberg Laboratories.