Dustings #56

Thanks to those of you who sent complimentary emails about Wednesday’s post. I didn’t get a chance to reply to each one. That post was in my head for so long that it comes to a point where I assume someone else must have made that point already. Which I’m fine with, so long as I’m adding something to what came before.

As I’ve discussed before on this site, I don’t read much magic theory. First, because most of what I read doesn’t feel like it applies to me. And second, because I don’t want it to interfere with what I’m writing about on this site and in my books, which is my own journey in magic and the things I’m learning from performing. That being said, if I do write something that overlaps significantly with something someone else wrote, please do let me know. That’s not like something that would bother me. I’d be happy to hear that and update the post with that information.

---

I saw that Joshua Jay mentioned me in his new book, How Magicians Think. I have to admit, I was at first confused by some of what he said. Here is an excerpt from page 299.

A lot of this is just inaccurate. My trick with the time capsule uses a signed card, not a cellphone. And in the ring trick (which is called Faith, not Letting Go), the ring reappears… well, wherever you want that you have access to. But probably not in a drawer in their apartment. So what’s going on here? Well, either Josh was drunk when he wrote this (likely) or maybe he’s doing me a favor. Those two tricks he mentioned are two of the strongest tricks I’ve created, but he made them seem even more impossible. And given that there will be more copies of his book published than copies of every magic book I ever write combined, he’s kind of boosting my legend a little. So thanks Josh!

The site is also mentioned in the notes section. And again, it’s a weird mention.

Sooo… that post he mentions has absolutely nothing to do with what he’s talking about in that chapter. But it does link to a post that links to the Dumb Houdini store (a site that puts a little bit of money in my pocket whenever someone buys something from there). So again, thanks Josh!

---

I like this review of Josh’s book:

Yeah, c’mon, Josh. What the fuck. How am I supposed to follow this? Every time he says “she” I think, “Wait… is he talking about the magician’s mom now?” I’m thrown every time.

And yes, I understand that in this new world order, women can finally do magic too, and we should acknowledge that. But I found this passage particularly pandering and strange:

“The best trick in magic is sponge balls. When a magician performs sponge balls she gets a feeling of excitement, because she knows it’s going to get a great response. Her breasts will heave in anticipation of the audience’s amazement. Her labia will quiver with delight. The combination of vaginal mucus and lubrication (which can contain carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, and other acids produced by the normal lactobacillus bacteria) will drip down her inner thigh. Performing the sponge ball trick, and seeing her spectator’s awestruck faces, will validate her decision not to follow society’s path of becoming a wife and mother—and instead to pursue her dreams of becoming a world-famous magicienne.”

Ooooookay…. That’s weird, right?

Dear Mentalists: The Art of the Pre-Reveal and the Pickle Jar Approach

You asked your friend to think of a famous person and write it down on a business card. Your friend is thinking of Brad Pitt. You’ve peeked this information.

You start to concentrate on their thought…

“Hmm… it’s an actor, I think. A film actor, primarily. At least that’s what I think I’m getting. He’s not old, but he’s been around for a while. I get the sense he’s been in a lot of public relationships. Hmm… he was in Fight Club. No… no… not Ed Norton. Hmm… who could it be. Wait.. it’s coming to me… Brad Pitt!”

This is only a slightly exaggerated version of the type of bad pre-reveals people give in mentalism. And by “pre-reveal” I mean the information they give before they (supposedly) know the actual information.

I once saw a trick where a guy had someone think of an item from a group of, like, 20 items. The person was thinking of an airplane. And the guy was picking up details of what they were thinking of. “It’s manmade… it’s a vehicle of some sort, I think.” Well, only two items in the group fit that description, so it was obvious where this was heading. He should have just said, “Well, it can only be the plane or the car then.” But instead he kept getting his “impressions.” “It’s big. Very big, actually. Am I seeing this in the air?” At that point it’s just like, get the fuck on with it.

We think of bad mentalism as saying, “You’re thinking of an actor… it’s Brad Pitt!” And so we think we need to add some process to the revelation. So we act as if we’re picking up on details as they become clearer and clearer. This, I think, seems more real, but it’s not great dramatically. It reduces the impact of the final reveal.

If you’re performing one-on-one, the other person already knows what they’re thinking of. If you give details and get closer and closer to that thing, then they soon realize exactly where this is going. It become anti-climactic.

Similarly, if you’re performing for an audience and they don’t know what the person is thinking, you don’t want to give so much detail that they’re ahead of you at the end. That too is anticlimactic. And sort of silly if they can jump to the correct conclusion with no psychic powers before you can put the pieces together with yours.

So what I find works best is to give information that is correct (or will be perceived as correct) but doesn’t give too much clarity. That way the people you perform for still get a sense of surprise when you name what they’re thinking of.

Three Ways to Give Information Without Giving Too Much Information

Let’s again say they’re thinking of Brad Pitt. Here are some techniques to give information without it being clear that you already know what they’re thinking.

Vagueness

This is sort of obvious. The idea is to just use hits that don’t actually reduce the pool of potential correct answers all that much.

• “I feel this person is still alive.”

• “I think it’s a male, yes…. oh… well, actually it could be a female with a strong masculine energy.”

• “This is someone you might see on TV.”

That last statement, “Someone you might see on TV,” is just another way of saying, “Someone famous.” It’s the kind of statement you can make without even knowing what the person wrote down yet.

Tell Them What It’s Not

A good source for “hits” that don’t give too much information is to reveal what it’s not. The moment you say, “This is an actor,” we all know that a lot of people will jump to Brad PItt. He’s one of the most commonly thought of actors.

But if you say:

“I don’t think this is a politician.”

“I don’t get the sense this is a historical figure.”

“I don’t see really long hair.”

You are giving them hits by excluding some things, but you’re not really drawing a bullseye around any one particular thing yet.

Similarly, if you have a list of objects, saying “You’re thinking of something manmade,” might eliminate half of the objects or more in one “hit.” That’s too much for me. I would instead say something like, “Okay, I don’t get the sense this is something you’d find…like…in your backyard or something.” That’s still a statement with some meaning. It might eliminate the tree and the flower, or whatever, from your list. But it doesn’t narrow you down too much.

Retroactive Hits

“I think maybe… is this an athlete? Like a boxer? No? Hmmm….”

Later when it’s revealed to be Brad Pitt you say, “Ah! Okay, that makes sense. I think I was picking up on the fighting from Fight Club. That must be where the ‘boxer’ idea came from.”

Coming up with these retroactive hits is very easy with actors because you can just “pick up” on one of their better known roles and misinterpret that.

You can also do it with inanimate objects by asking them to build out a picture around that object in their mind. So you might say, “Is this an animal you’re thinking of?” They say no, and later on it’s revealed they were thinking of a tree. At that point you can say, “Hmm… I’m trying to figure out what I was receiving from you. Did you think of a bird in the tree or a squirrel or something?” If they were, this seems like another hit. If not, it doesn’t really matter because this comes after you’ve already successfully completed the effect.

✿✿✿

So, how close do you want to get to the final reveal in the pre-reveal stage? For me the answer is about 25% of the way there. Any more than that and I think it feels like a foregone conclusion before the reveal, rathe than a surprise.

Now, for this to make sense, you may need to change what you imagine the process of “mind reading” to be. You might think it doesn’t make sense to only get 25% of the way there, and then you make the leap to the correct answer. You might think it’s more “realistic” to get more and more information, gradually zeroing in on more specifics, until the point that you finally get the right answer. But that’s only “more realistic” if you imagine reading someone’s mind is like reading a sign in the distance. First it’s a blurry jumble, then as you get closer and closer you can make out more details, until finally you can read the sign or see the picture clearly. If that’s how you think of mind-reading, then it makes sense that your pre-reveal is a sort of linear progression of greater detail.

But I would argue that it might be more interesting—and certainly more dramatically satisfying—to not think of mind-reading that way. Consider an Agatha Christie novel. In one of those, are the detective’s insights of greater and greater specificity until it’s clear who the killer is? Do we have half the answers halfway through the book? No. There are hints and red herrings for the first 95% of the book. Only at the very end do you see that it all came together and the investigation “worked.”

I think this pace is a more interesting way to do a reveal. And there’s really no reason mind-reading can’t follow this formula. Instead of a picture gradually becoming clearer, maybe it’s more like opening a really tough pickle jar. You kind of work at it and work at it, and maybe you’re making some progress, but it’s hard to tell and then eventually—in a moment—the jar pops open. Maybe mind reading is like that. It’s not immediate. But it’s also not a linear progression. It’s sort of a struggle—is this working, is this not—and then, in a flash of insight, you have it. With that model of how mind-reading works, you can still “show the process” while keeping the ending in doubt and maintaining the surprise of your successful reveal.

Monday Mailbag #57

[Do you] recommend a technique for easing ones nerves...

My best trick for this is to address the issue to the people before you - "gosh my nerves are kicking in here - hopefully you won't notice my icy, shaking, sweat drenched hand things..." —GB

I tried to address this in a previous mailbag post, but I don’t really have a great answer, because it’s not really something I deal with. At least not regularly.

But here’s an idea to consider. You wouldn’t be able to do it all the time, but you might be able to get away with it occasionally. And that idea is to attribute the nerves to something else. Something related to the trick, but not just, “I’m worried I’m going to screw this trick up.”

So, for example, you could say, “I might be a little jittery here. To do this trick right you have to practice this mind-centering, breathing/meditation technique. It makes you hyper-sensitive to certain things, but it also kind of puts you on edge.”

Or, “Okay, I’m nervous, so forgive me if my hands shake a little. The truth is, I’m not supposed to be showing anyone this trick. I belong to this kind of underground magic group that shares tricks with each other, but we’re not really supposed to show them to others without permission. We sign an agreement and you can get kicked out of the group if they found out. Not that I think you guys would ever say anything to anyone or post anything online. But there are stories of some members of the group performing a trick they weren’t supposed to for someone in their private home when nobody else was around, and nobody mentioned it afterwards, and still somehow this group knew. So that’s why I’m a little on edge. But I really want to show you this thing that I don’t think anyone outside of this group of magicians has ever seen…”

I can think of three benefits to this:

First, it would give you an excuse to show nerves other than, “I’m a little puss-baby who is worried about fucking up his magic trick.”

Second, now that you’ve provided a reason to be nervous, you’ll probably be less so. I would guess that part of the reason people get nervous is because they’re worried about getting nervous.

Third, if you do end up shaking, or sweating like a maniac, or shitting your undies, or whatever, you will have taken this potentially embarrassing situation and turned it around in the audience’s mind. They will think, “Oh, come on… he’s not really nervous, right? It’s just for the story. There’s not really a secret magic organization that’s going to find out about this that he’s worried about, right?”

---

Hi Andy, after reading today's post (which even made me marvel just reading the coin vanish part... That alone was magical after the setup, even in print) it reminded me I wanted to ask you about breaking character.

Obviously they know this didn't really happen (or any of these stories used in your style a lot). So do you ever just give a knowing smile or a wink at some point?

I ask, because if I did this, they would say, "okay, that didn't really happen, right??", whether it was this story, or one of the many examples you have in print using a setup (even if it was more believable or something that could be true, even if only constructed as back story). What they're really asking, is, "yeah I know there's no curse, but how did you do that?"

They'd know I'm telling tales. That means if I really meant to pull it off, it could never be revealed to look anything but spontaneous if you're doing magic that "comes up" situationally, or because you steer it in that direction to perform.

If you ever break character, then it's, "okay, he's just being the magician/mind-reader that he is".

I know that you know your friends know you are a performer/casual magician (or whatever), so do you just maintain the stories you create and stand by them? Or do you ever acknowledge that they know you're just "putting them on" so to speak?

Hard to explain, but I'm sure you know what I'm asking?

Strict example using this post, if I started that up, they would know I'm going into "that mode". It would still be fun and very engaging because that's a fantastic presentation, but I only know one person dumb enough to believe it, and that that's why the coin vanished. And I don't hang out with her.

Anyway, thoughts? Do you step into character/story mode, like a movie, where everyone then let's go of any prior beliefs and just enjoys the narrative? —NS

I’ll answer this in pieces…

So do you ever just give a knowing smile or a wink at some point?

No. Ideally I’m doing something so impossible/crazy/absurd that it would be kind of insulting to wink at them.

Imagine you’re dating someone and it’s Christmas and you sneak a gift onto the coffee table at some point in time. “Whoa… there’s a gift here on the table. It’s from Santa! Wow. I thought I saw something in the sky earlier.” Or whatever. You wouldn’t then say, “Just so you know, I’m only kidding around.” It goes without saying what’s going on.

Now, I don’t always get this right. I don’t always push things far enough. I made that mistake a couple times last month when I was doing some seance-y type stuff. It was almost too believable for the people I was doing it for (people who are open to that sort of thing). So when I found them more in a state of questioning (“is this real or not?”) rather than appreciation for the story, then I did need to give a metaphorical wink.

But usually I want to do something so outlandish that the wink is redundant. This is the idea of the Reverse Disclaimer. The “wink” or the “knowing smile” in this case is the same as the disclaimer. It’s something I want to get rid of.

I ask, because if I did this, they would say, "okay, that didn't really happen, right??", whether it was this story, or one of the many examples you have in print using a setup

If someone said, “That didn’t really happen, right?” I would say, “I swear to god it did. A gypsy put a curse on this ring and made it take my money. I swear on the lives of your children that’s a true story. Why would you doubt that?”

I know that you know your friends know you are a performer/casual magician (or whatever), so do you just maintain the stories you create and stand by them? Or do you ever acknowledge that they know you're just "putting them on" so to speak?

I will talk with them in a general sense about doing magic, or something I did for a mutual friend. And they will say things to me where they mention really enjoying a particular trick or story. And I’m not like, “No, no! It’s not a trick, it really happened!” So I’ll happily acknowledge the reality in a broad manner. And when you do that, you don’t have to worry about how they view individual tricks.

It’s like professional wrestling. In the 80s, they used to sort of pretend what they were doing was real in and out of the ring. Then, at some point, they realized that was stupid and they went to a model where they would just pretend things were real within the show. But when they appeared on talk shows or podcasts or something, they would talk more freely about playing a character and working on a story arc and whatnot.

The difference between wrestling and magic is that in magic there is less of a distinction between when we’re “in the show” and when we’re not. I intentionally like to blur those lines when I perform. But I’ve educated the people I perform for enough to understand that the performance world is fictional and then there is the real world. What I’m interested in doing is not making it 100% clear when you’re in which world.

So do I step into performance mode? Yes and no. Sometimes I make it very subtle and sometimes it’s more abrupt. The Campfire Story Performance Style, as described in the post you’re talking about in your question, would be on the more abrupt end. It would have a “gather around for this story” feel. But in other cases the people wouldn’t know they were “in” a trick until the climax. Playing around with this sort of thing keeps it interesting for me and the spectators.

Dustings #55

Do you have a copy of the November 1967 issue of Genii lying around somewhere?

It’s the one with your grandpa’s friend on the cover.

At any rate, I need to give credit where it’s due. A number of years ago I wrote a post about how snapping your fingers was just about the dumbest, least creative way to “cause” magic to happen. And then I went on to define and codify Imps—the things you do or the things that happen that apparently cause the magic to occur.

Well, 50 years earlier, on page 13 of that issue of Genii, it seems Joe Fenichel had already discovered the ultimate Imp…

[Thanks to Joshua B. for directing me to this as.]

---

Fleshing Out the Sankey-verse

I noticed something recently about Jay Sankey’s website and promotional emails. Many of the endorsements for his tricks come from people who have absolutely zero other mentions of themselves online. For example, if you search the name “Wes Perlmann,” who gave a quote about Jay’s trick, Bigger Finish, you will find no record of such a person existing, other than his quote about that Sankey effect.

There are two possibilities here. The first—which I believe—is that Jay has a die-hard following of hermits and mole-people and others who live their lives so far off the grid that there is no record of them online. Yet they love Jay’s tricks so much they just need to come out of hiding to give him a quote.

The second possibility is that these people don’t exist.

I don’t believe that, of course, but if it’s true, I’ve decided to expand the Saney-verse by putting a fake face to the fake name.

I used the site thispersondoesnotexist.com to get the images below. That site creates “photographs” of people that are just generated from an algorithm. They aren’t photos. Those people don’t exist. At least they didn’t exist until now. Now they exist as a group of people with no online presence who are also die-hard Sankey fans.

Here are some quotes from Jay’s site attributed to non-entities, and the computer-generated faces I’ve assigned to them.

"Jay performed 'Melting Point' in his lecture for our club, and when he revealed the gimmick everyone's jaws hit the floor."

-Darcy Bedoin

Darcy Bedoin, whose magic club is easily impressed.

"Melting Point is a mind-blowing trick and the nail makes for a great magic wand.

-Francois Lyrio

Francois Lyrio, who thinks a nail makes for a great magic wand.

"Bigger Finish is the kind of trick people never forget."

- Wes Perlmann

Wes Perlmann, who over-exaggerates how memorable jumbo cards are.

"I just opened the package and the Contained gimmick looks absolutely brilliant!"

-Christopher Orfson

Christopher Orfson, a very enthusiastic young man.

"Soundwaves is even easier than I thought it would be. I love Jay's brain!"

-Stephan Marquote

Stephan Marquote, suspiciously silent about how he feels about Jay’s cock and balls.

---

Here is an idea for a pre-trick Rep. It would be used for a coin trick. You ask, "Want to see a coin trick?" And you toss out a washer (or washers) on the table. They might comment that they’re not coins. Whether they say something or not, you just correct yourself. "Ah, well, it's not technically a coin trick. I use washers instead of coins. I got sick of losing 50 cents or a dollar every time I vanished a coin, so I switched to washers.”

Now, what is the point of saying such a thing? I just think it adds a little color to a presentation. You’re saying something in an off-hand manner that makes complete logical sense, but only in a fantastical world. These types of statements are usually interesting, at the very least. And occasionally people will get so caught up in the logic that they seem to momentarily accept the crazy premise it’s based on.

In a world where vanished coins were really gone for good, you wouldn’t vanish coins. You would vanish washers or bottle caps or something. So it makes perfect sense to comment on that. “Yeah, I don’t vanish coins. That just gets too expensive. Some people do it for clout. But if the money really means that little to you, donate it to the homeless.” Or whatever.

Creep Updates

David Oliver (real name David Hussey)—seen here trying to get a peek of Shin Lim’s cock—has been kicked out of the GLOMM after pleading guilty in a Massachusetts court to fucking with boys he was supposed to be teaching magic to. (I don’t know what he actually plead to, but that’s close enough.)

According to his Wikipedia page, “Oliver is known for his neoclassic style of performing stage magic.” But what I know him best for is his love of abusing children and the trust of their parents. After that, I know him as someone who once wore maxi-pads on his head like a sassy beret.

By the way, that creature in the picture above is two years younger than Brad Pitt. Apparently sexually abusing kids doesn’t keep you looking young and vibrant. It makes you look like you’re doing Humpty Dumpty cosplay.

---

On a similar note, recently I was threatened with my first lawsuit since starting this site. One of the ex-GLOMM members that I’ve talked shit about wrote me to tell me that he didn’t like what I wrote about him and that since getting out of jail he actually had gotten his life together and what he did was a mistake, and so on.

I wrote him back: “I wish you the best of luck staying on the right path.”

He wrote me back asking me to take down the article because he wanted this incident to “go away.”

I didn’t respond.

He wrote back a few hours later saying he was going to sue me if I didn’t remove the article in 48 hours.

I replied: “This is the last nice message you're going to get from me. No, I won't take the post down. (And no, you can't sue me for making jokes about you.) That post is the consequence of your own actions. I haven't mentioned you on my site for over three years. And, at this point, I have no intention of doing so in the future. We can keep it that way. Or, if you want, you can try and start shit with me. I think that would be a mistake on your part. But it's up to you.”

I haven’t heard from him since. Perhaps he still has plans to send his lawyers after me. I don’t know. At this time I’m not going to mention his name again on this site. But I do want to send a heartfelt message to him and anyone else in the same position who gets a smart idea to threaten me: Eat my asshole, bitch. You don’t like having your name mentioned along with your crime? Well…tough shit. I’m going to be honest with you, when I write these posts, my goal is to do something you wouldn’t like. Sooooo… you coming to me and telling me you don’t like it is just confirmation of a job well done. So thank you.

Here’s the deal, an argument can be made that these people have “paid their debt to society” and therefore it’s wrong of me to bring up their past. Yes, they have paid a legal debt. But they have not paid their cosmic debt. The people they victimized are not suddenly made whole because they did their jail time or probation time. And while it’s much less significant than the toll these perpetrator’s actions took on the victims and their families, their actions also took a toll on magic and other magicians because it negatively impacts the perception of the art and its practitioners. Especially when the perpetrator used magic as part of the grooming of their victim or met their victim through magic (as happened with David Oliver above and many/most of the people who have been kicked out of the GLOMM). So you can see me as the magic community’s small bit of retribution. God knows none of the “proper” magic organizations are going to do shit about it.

Look, I see myself as a very reasonable person. I don’t think you’re a terrible person for thinking, “I want to fuck that little league team.” Or whatever your temptation may be. You want to assault every woman walking down the street? That’s fine. You should maybe get help for that so you don’t feel so tortured but I don’t judge you for your desires. I judge you for giving into them when you know your actions will hurt or take advantage of someone else. Listen, pedophiles and sexual predators… I’m trying to empower you! Okay… that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. What I’m saying is: you are not the fucked-up thoughts in your head. You are the things you do. If you’re not a complete psychopath you probably think you’re evil or broken because of these thoughts. But it’s not the thoughts that matter, it’s the actions.

In the parlance of a recent post, these thoughts may be things you want to do but they are likely not things you want to have done.

So let this be your fun little secret you take to the grave with you. Every day you wanted to covertly record your niece going to the bathroom or fist-fuck the neighbor’s doberman or whatever your compulsion was, but you never did. In this way you’re actually a better person than me, who never faced those desires in the first place. You’re a secret hero. I’m not being facetious.

And if you messed up in the past, you can be that hero going forward. But you also have to own your past. And if your instinct is, “I need to write this magic blogger so he takes down the post talking about my rape conviction!” That’s not great ownership.

But whatever you do, if your goal is to distance yourself from your past actions, you must certainly not threaten that blogger that you’re going to sue him. Because then, rather than one post disappearing down the vast archives of this site, I’ll be writing about your dumb ass every day. You’re not dealing with a pre-pubescent child this time. You can’t silence me with threats.

Cog-neato or Cog-NOT-o?

That post title is why I get the big bucks.

I’ve received a few emails along these lines…

Do you have any thoughts on the new Cognito app? It seems like it could be a useful tool. Have you messed around with it yet? Have any plans for how you’ll use it? —SC

No, I haven’t played around with it yet. But my friend owns it and I’ve learned the workings and seen it in action this past weekend.

My initial thoughts are these:

• There’s a lot of really intelligent ideas built into this app.

• It’s a very fair price for the app.

• The app can be used for many different types of effects.

• I will definitely buy the app.

• I probably won’t use it that often.

The app allows you to know what someone is thinking from some finite group of items (playing cards, astrological signs, or whatever else you want) without them ever saying or writing down what they’re thinking. There is a fairly extensive process involved, and that is I think the primary weakness of the app. Not that there is a process. I like process. I have a whole performance style based on highlighting process. But here the process involves a whole lot of focus and energy put into the phone. This is kind of an abstract concept, but ideally you want the “energy” of a presentation to be flowing between the performer and spectator (making the trick seem more interpersonal and connective), or flowing outward into your surroundings (making the trick feel more expansive). What’s not ideal is a trick that focuses so much energy into looking at something on a phone screen over and over.

And some of these tricks do require a lot of focus. There is a pretty cool “card” trick (done without any cards) built into the app. My friend tried this on maybe a dozen different people when I was with him and it had about a 50% success rate. The trick relies on the spectator accurately doing something that’s fairly easy to fail at, and it requires them to do it multiple times. If he had “managed” his audience better and took it much slower, he probably would have had a better success rate. But we weren’t in the environment where that made sense.

My advice is to buy the app, because I think there’s going to be a handful of really great ideas that can only be done with this app. I saw the facebook group for this and there are some interesting ideas floating around there already that are using the app in completely different ways. But for every interesting ideas, there are a bunch of shitty ideas that only seem good because they’re taking advantage of some clever aspect of the app. People are getting swept up by the methods rather than the ultimate effect. The truth is that there are going to be very, very few presentations where the process required for the effect to work makes any sense at all. “Come look at my photo collages of Marvel movie posters that I have on my phone for some reason! One after another, after another, after another, after another, after another. Pause for a while and think whenever your chosen movie appears in the collage. And I’ll guess wha it is. ” That’s not good magic, even if the person doesn’t know how it’s done.

If your only goal is knowing what someone is thinking from a group of items without the person ever saying or speaking its name, then a much better option for that purpose is Xeno by Marc Kerstein. It’s one of my favorite apps and completely underrated, in my opinion. It gets you off the phone and onto whatever your mind-reading presentation or process is immediately, without the spectator saying anything, writing anything down, or even indicating anything, as they would have to do (in one form or another) with Cognito.

I’m trying not to sound negative about Cognito, because I do think it’s a good app. The problem is, like many good apps, it will be tempting to overuse it. I would just be cognizant of if a given effect is truly best done with this app.

As for how I’ll use it, I haven’t given it that much thought yet. I’ll let you know if I come up with any good ideas. What I’d like to do, although it would take some effort, is throw a small party and have my friends help me with the pictures I would use in the effect. Then afterwards I could approach someone who wasn’t there and show them some pictures of the party. (A normal thing to have on your camera roll as opposed to… say… a bunch of maps of the United States with different states arbitrarily colored in.) I’d have my friend think of anyone who was at the party, then go through the photos and anytime there was a picture with that person it it, they would pause and try to send a thought, or connect in some mental way to that person. At the end of the photo roll they’d find a photo of the one person they were thinking of holding a sign that says something like, “Thanks for thinking of me. I’ve been thinking of you too. A creepy amount. A lot of it is perverted.” Or something along those lines.