Dumb Tricks: Gleem Vanish

I stayed at my friends’ place this weekend. They have two kids, 8 and 10 years old. The idea for this trick came to me in during the day and I performed it for them that night when they went to brush their teeth. The kids freaked out—running around, screaming and spitting toothpaste foam everywhere. I don’t do too much performing for kids, but I think this is a perfect casual kid’s trick. It’s a variation on a standard beginner’s magic trick, but with a kicker ending that blows their dumb little minds.

There’s a trick from Tarbell called Ear It Is by Harry Crawford. You may know it even if you don’t think you do. It’s a coin vanish where you tap the coin with a pencil, only to have the pencil vanish. You show the pencil is really just behind your ear. During that misdirection, you ditch the coin. Then you make it “really” vanish.

If you don’t know it, here’s me teaching the trick.

Just kidding, that’s not me. But that’s the trick I’m talking about.

So this weekend, when the kids were brushing their teeth, I walked past the bathroom and said, “You guys want to see a trick?”

Propositioning pre-teens in the bathroom is something many of you are more comfortable with than I am, but the door was open and their parents were right there, so it wasn’t anything sketchy. And, of course, they wanted to see a trick.

I grabbed my toothbrush and took the cap off the toothpaste tube. I did the same pen/coin vanish as in Ear It Is, just with the toothbrush and the cap. I would say the kids were moderately impressed by that. Even for kids, it’s not that great a trick.

What really set them off was when they asked me where the cap was and I pointed to the toothpaste tube that was no longer within arms reach of me, and the cap was back on the tube.

The method was simply that I had the extra cap from the toothpaste tube I travelled with. When I was starting the trick I took their tube and mimed removing the cap and then brought my extra cap into view and focused attention on that. I tossed their tube of toothpaste aside so it ended up far away from me. No one is paying that much attention at that stage, so just miming removing the cap is as fooling as it needs to be.

And from there, it’s just the standard effect with different props.

The way the trick progresses: from a sort of “gag” vanish, to a real vanish, to an unexpected reappearance, is very strong from a kid’s perspective, I think.

Later that night, my friend went into her 8-year-old’s room and he was lying in bed, hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. “I can’t go to sleep,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about that toothpaste trick!”

I can tell this trick is going to stick with them for quite some time, maybe forever, similar to the way I still vividly remember dumb tricks I saw when I was a kid. That’s why it will be especially fun, years from now, when they mention this trick to deny it ever happened and try and convince them that it must have been a shared hallucination.

Monday Mailbag #31

I have a question about today's post (Canned Responses).

I've performed socially a number of times for a number of different friends, and there's always this moment where they realize that the whole thing is... a trick. Does that make sense? They realize that this very interesting conversation we've been having, this strange concept or folktale or whatever that they're learning about was just a set up for a trick.

And don't get me wrong; nobody's mad about it. Everyone enjoyed the experience. But something turns at that moment, when they realize it was a setup for a piece of magic. And then, when they ask, "How did you do that?" and I double down, "Oh it's my dead grandma," that's when I begin to lose them. That's when they say, "Okay, well you can drop that now."

Lately I've been getting sharp enough to just shift the conversation before they have the chance to start asking those questions, but I was wondering if you could speak to this at all. —LB

There are a few issues here.

The first is this: “The moment where they realize that the whole thing is a trick.”

That “moment” should be when you start the trick.

If you think something is a documentary and then 3/4s of the way through you realize it’s not, you will feel misled. But if you know you’re watching a work of fiction—and yet there are moments that seem like they must be real—then you are going to be even more engrossed and affected by what you’re watching. So there’s no reason to ever have the audience in the dark about the overall nature of the experience.

Second, I don’t really get into any immersive styles of performance until the spectator has shown themselves to be interested and accepting of that style. See this post for a discussion of the progression I use when performing for people and you’ll see how I ease people into it. If at any point along that process the person is like, “Hey.. wait… what? That’s not real. You don’t know a psychic baby!” Then I just pull off the throttle presentationally.

The purpose of giving people better presentations is to give them something of interest besides just the secret—besides just the “how it was done.” If they’re the sort of people who only want to focus on the “how,” then don’t waste a more interesting presentation on them. I’m not saying I wouldn’t ever show people like that magic, I just wouldn’t bother showing them anything that was doing anything interesting presentationally. If it’s only ever going to be a puzzle to be solved, then you’re not served by creating stories/experiences. You’re served by giving them the most difficult to solve puzzles.

Third, don’t hesitate to abandon a trick if the lead-in gets too real or too personal. While I want people to know it’s a trick as early as possible, there still may be a point where I transition into the trick from a real discussion. So, let’s say it’s a trick about luck. My plan might be something like this:

1. Nudge the conversation toward the subject of luck.

2. Bring up the concept of a Luck Test or a Luck Ritual or a Luck Formula or whatever.

3. Transition from that concept into the trick.

Now, my audiences know once #2 happens that they’re on the path to a trick. They don’t necessarily know if this is something I planned or if it’s a spur of the moment sort of thing, but they do get a sense of where things are going the moment I say, “There’s something really unusual I was reading the other day….”

So they know it’s a trick pretty early on.

You might say, “Yes, but aren’t they bothered by the fact that during the conversation at #1, they didn’t know what your intentions were?”

No.

It’s simple. If we’re just have a quick, casual conversation that leads into a trick, they’re not going to feel manipulated by that. And if we end up having a deep, intense conversation on the subject, then I’m not going to go into the trick. I’ll save it for another day, rather than undermine the interaction we just had.

The final issue to touch on is in this section of your email:

And then, when they ask, "How did you do that?" and I double down, "Oh it's my dead grandma," that's when I begin to lose them. That's when they say, "Okay, well you can drop that now."

This suggests they’re probably not the right audience for this type of presentation. If they’re disputing the notion that your dead grandmother cut the deck of cards, they’re not taking the presentation in the spirit in which it’s intended. In the future, just show them normal card tricks.

But if you get yourself in that situation, the only thing to do is lean into it 150%. “I swear on the lives of my children that my grandmother’s ghost cut that deck of cards.” By making it even more ridiculous you highlight how dumb it is to dispute it.

Another thing I’ve done a couple times in the past with some success it to hint at why I’m presenting the trick this way. So if they say, “Tell me how you did that. I know it wasn’t your dead grandmother.”

I’d reply with something like: “I’m not sure what you’re suggesting. You’re saying that wasn’t my dead grandmother who cut that deck? So then… what? Are you saying that I know some way to make a deck cut without anybody touching it? That’s fine if you want to believe that. I’m flattered, actually. But why wouldn’t I take credit for that?”

This logic is particularly hard to debate. Why would you not take credit for something? Especially given magic’s usual reputation as being a battle of wits. The hope being that if they consider why you’re presenting it this way, they’ll realize you’re not looking for praise or validation, and in turn they don’t need to look for “the secret.” I think subtly pointing this out to people can change their attitude a little. But it’s not something I do too often. I prefer to just perform for the people who get it instinctively.

---

I was wondering whether you had any thoughts about presenting a trick similar to a long joke with low payoff. It would be akin to Norm Macdonald’s moth joke.

I haven’t bought the haunted deck trick by Jeki Yoo yet, but I was thinking along the lines of presenting it by going to an older house and saying something to the effect of being able to contact the dead by playing music that particularly resonates with them. Because it’s an older house, we need to make sure that anything that happens is specifically in response to what we’re doing, hopefully justifying the selection procedure. In everyone’s heads we’re thinking of lights going out, doors slamming, and the like. We could light some candles, chant something in Latin, and finally, with everyone watching the deck, have someone press play on my phone. Immediately, “Down with the Sickness” comes out of the speakers, and executing the trick. It’s *something*, but far below what anyone was hoping for.

I know that, structure wise, it isn’t very strong. It’s the opposite of what we generally want from a trick. The thought process behind it would be to set up an interaction with a low bar that any follow up tricks would exceed easily. Do you think this is an idea worth pursuing?—AR

I think the basic premise here is great. In AR’s full email he talks about maybe incorporating this trick into other performances later on. But I wouldn’t do that. I would just keep it as a “shaggy dog” magic trick. I’d want it to feel like a clear joke, not part of anything else I’m doing with them. Making it part of a larger routine actually takes away from the experience in a way, because the purpose of a shaggy dog story is that the payoff is so minimal and the story was so purposeless. So I would try and keep it that way.

I used to do something similar, which I think I wrote about previously somewhere. I had one of those coin vanish boxes where the drawer slides into a sleeve.

I would have that on the table along with an old, ornate wooden box, about the size of a shoe box. I’d borrow a coin, put it into the plastic thing, and close it. Then I’d take a key, and unlock the wooden box and open it up. I’d slowly unfold several layers of fabric that were surrounding what was in the box. Then I’d get to a long velvet bag, that was tied shut with some string. I’d unknot the string from the bag and I would pull out two parts of a magic wand that screwed together like a pool stick. I’d twist the two pieces together until the magic wand was complete. Then I’d remove another small bag from the box. Untie the knot holding it shut, and remove a small piece of fabric which I’d use to polish the wand. After all this I would take the wand and tap the plastic box. Then I’d do it all in reverse. Fold up the polishing fabric, put it in a bag, and knot the top. Unscrew the wand, put the pieces in the velvet bag, tie it back up. Place the bags in the box and one-by-one, fold in the corners of the fabric pieces in the box. I’d close the box, lock it up, and set it aside.

This all took minutes to achieve. Then I would slide the plastic drawer out to show the coin was gone.

I considered not having the coin disappear and saying, “Oh wait, I was supposed to tap it twice,” and then start in on the process all over again. But I can’t remember if I ever did that.

I wouldn’t be too abusive with this sort of thing. I wouldn’t take up hours of someone’s time for a trick that didn’t really go anywhere. But 20 minutes? Yeah, I might do that.

Ideally this wouldn’t be one of the first things you show someone. If it is, they won’t get the joke. They’ll just think it was underwhelming, like most magic tricks. Instead you should perform this sort of thing for people who have enjoyed some longer, immersive tricks in the past.

The idea of setting up some gothic, ritualistic effect and ending it by playing Down With the Sickness and having something very minor happen is a fun one.

The hard part will be finding an effect that’s minor enough to make the joke work. The fact of the matter is, with enough build up, even the smallest effect can feel significant to people. Maybe the way to go is to light the candles, do the chants, sacrifice a stray cat, draw a pentagram in blood… then pull out a Criss Angel magic kit and do something from that.

Who Wants to Make 99* Cents?

I have a bunch of ideas for apps (mostly non-magic) that no one wants but me. I’ve put some time into learning to code, but it’s always my lowest priority, so I’m moving slowly on it. I’ve decided I’ll occasionally share an app idea here. Then, if someone who creates apps has some time to kill, they can pop out the app. This isn’t a money-making situation. I’m not going to pay you to make it (because I don’t really care) and you’re not going to pay me for the idea if you do end up creating and selling the app (again, because I don’t really care and no one is likely to buy it).

This first app would be called Who Won?

This is an app that will tell you who won the day’s games in sports.

But that’s all it will tell you. It won’t tell you what the score was, or anything that happened during the game.

You see, I like sports, and I often don’t get to watch a game live. So I’ll record it to watch later.

That’s fine, but I don’t want to spend a couple hours watching a game if the team I like lost. I don’t consider that an enjoyable use of my time.

So it’s just a matter of looking up who won to see if I want to watch it. But if I am going to watch the game, I don’t really want to know any of the details about what occurred other than who won. I don’t want to know the score or anything that happened in the game. I want to be surprised if it’s a last second win, or a blow-out, or a big comeback or whatever.

So that would be the purpose of this app.

The simplest version would just be a scoreboard of various sports, but without the scores. So the winning team would just be highlighted a certain color or whatever.

A more advanced version would allow you to pick certain teams in different sports and leagues and you would just get the results for those particular teams.

If anyone decides to build this, let me know. I’ll buy a copy and you’ll make 99 cents (*well, 65 cents after Apple’s cut).

The Juxe: Autumnal Music

Here’s a short mix of some songs with a mix of acoustic-y, echo-y, folk-y, nostalgic, slightly dark sound that I associate with the music that seems to fit just right for this season.

Bonfires on the Heath by The Clientele (London, England)

Furr by Blitzen Trapper (Portland, Oregon)

Yer Fall by Hey Rosetta! (Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada)

Willy O Winsbury by Pentangle (UK)

Before You Go by Tony Molina (California)

And, of course, the most lovely autumnal song there is… the original version of The Monster Mash (not the one you’re familiar with).

Dealing With the Low-Bubblers

It took me a couple read-thrus but your posts earlier this year about the “bubble” [Feb 26, 27, 28} really changed my approach to performing magic and led to a whole different level of reactions.

One thing I’d like to hear you talk about is how you deal with people who have a “low bubble set point” (if that’s the right phrasing). How do you deal with people who naturally have a low appreciation for magic if showing them stronger magic isn’t the key to getting them to like it more? —WL

This is a good question. Here’s what I recommend.

First, if you have someone who doesn’t enjoy magic, then don’t show them magic. There is nothing that brings down a performance than trying to rope someone in who doesn’t appreciate it. I have enough experience now that if I show someone a trick on an occasion or two and they’re not enthusiastic about it, then I just don’t bother showing them anything in the future. Magic is an interest of mine, it’s not my identity. If someone doesn’t dig it, then that’s fine with me.

I will sometimes try to get them to feel like they’re missing out by performing for friends we have in common, or something like that. But I’m not going to force anything on them. Occasionally they’ll ask why I don’t show them anything and I’ll say, “Oh, I didn’t get the sense that you were into it.” I don’t get weird about it. I’m not like, “Well, I DID show you something once and you barely said anything about it, so why would I show you anything again if you’re not going to appreciate it? I’ve got better things to do with my time.” My attitude is—and this is my actual attitude, not an act I’m putting on for them— “Oh, I just didn’t think you were interested in it. I’m happy to show you something anytime you want to see. Just ask.” This puts the onus on them.

These days, almost all my performing is done on an opt-in basis. I’m performing for people who want to see stuff. I don’t have to chase anyone.

But here’s a technique you can use if you meet someone who expresses a disinterest in magic.

Them: So I heard you do magic?

You: Yeah, a little bit.

Them: God, I hate magic tricks.

You: Oh, I know what you mean. I couldn’t stand them for a long time. Like card tricks and stuff? What’s the point? But a few years ago I met this woman who showed me some stuff that’s on a whole different level. It completely changed my opinion on what magic could be.

See? You meet them where they are: “Oh yeah, magic sucks.” Then you imply that the stuff you’re doing is not what they’re used to.

The best way to get people to be open to changing their opinion is not by arguing against that opinion but by identifying with it.

If you say, “I hate jazz.” And I say, “No! You have to listen to this album. It’s so good. I promise. You’ll like it.” That’s likely just going to make you more entrenched in your anti-jazz position.

But if you say, “I hate jazz.” And I say, “Oh god. I totally get that feeling. Some jackass honking tunelessly on a saxophone? Squee-doodley-doo-dottin-doo. No thanks. Give me lyrics and a chorus. That was always my opinion too. Then about 18 months ago I heard this jazz album that completely blew me away.” Now, I will have at least piqued your curiosity and planted the seed that this is the sort of album that is capable of changing your mind about the subject.

You can do the same thing with magic, so long as you have something to show them that doesn’t just feel like the same thing they already decided they didn’t like.

Canned Responses

Your favorite magician, Joshua Jay, wrote an article on how to respond to common questions magicians get over on the Vanishing Inc. blog. Do you have your own go-to answers for those common questions mentioned in that article, i.e., “Will you tell me how you did that?” “Can you saw me in half right now?” “Can you make my wife disappear?” —CM

Hmm… “Can you saw me in half right now?” Is that really a question magicians get asked a lot? I mean, sure, maybe after watching a Joshua Jay performance you say it. In the way that you’d say, “Can you please kill me now?”

Magicians are funny. They all perform tricks in a similar manner, and then they get similar responses from their audiences, and then they ask, “What’s a good response we can all give to these common questions we’re getting based on our indistinguishable performances?”

A canned performance leads to canned responses requiring canned answers.

You can avoid a lot of this sort of thing based on the way you interact with your audience when you perform. If you’re a professional doing tablehopping or walkaround magic, you might have no choice but to deal with these questions. It’s the nature of the business. And I think Josh’s article was geared towards people performing in more formal/professional circumstances, because the vast majority of these are professional-only questions.

“Can you make my wife disappear?” “Can you make the check disappear?” If you’re getting those types of questions in a social situation, you’re fucked. Because these are the questions people ask when they feel absolutely no connection with the performer and with what they just saw. That’s somewhat understandable if you’re their table-side restaurant magician and they just feel the need to say something at the end of your performance. But if you invited a friend to meet up for coffee and you’ve crafted some cool trick to show her and when you’re done she says, “Can you make the check disappear?” you just have to leave and keep walking until you hit the ocean and then continue walking until you drown yourself.

So, no, I don’t have answers to most of those questions, because they never come up.

The only one that really does come up is this:

“How did you do that?”

Here’s the important thing to understand: Usually, this question does not require a response. It is just a standard exclamation, like saying, “Wow,” or, “No way.” If you respond with an answer—”Very well, indeed!” or “If I told you, I’d have to kill”—then you are suggesting you have canned responses to questions in casual situations and that you’re incapable of differentiating between an off-the-cuff remark and a genuine request for information.

Of course, occasionally, a spectator really does ask “Can you tell me how you did that?” And they really want to know. If your magic is performed in a manner which is meant to highlight you as the magician, and you accomplish it with the snap of your fingers or the wave of a wand, then you are kind of stuck.

When you set it up as, “I’m the magician, and I have these powers,” there’s almost no other way that it can go other than the ping-pong back-and-forth of…

Magician: Ta-daa!

Spectator: How did you do that?

Magician: Very well, indeed!

Spectator: No, seriously. How did you know what I was thinking of?

Magician: Can you keep a secret? So can I!

Spectator: Can I look at the wallet?

Magician: Why don’t I show you something even more interesting.

The traditional magician/spectator dynamic is one where the spectator really only has a couple options when the trick is over:

1 - Praise you.

2 - Question you.

As a social magician, performing for the same people or groups of people over time, I can teach them that neither of these options are satisfying. I’ve found that shifting from a magician-centric approach to a story-centric approach tends to make both these choices lead to dead-ends for the spectator.

Let’s say I’m using a Haunted Deck. If I use a magician-centric approach and say I can cut the deck with my mind, then they can really only respond with, “Wow, you’re amazing!” or “Tell me how it’s done.”

But, if I use a story-centric approach and say this deck belonged to my grandma and it’s a very special deck to me because we used to play cribbage together. She passed away almost 20 years ago now, but every year on this date (the day she died) she sends me a sign that she’s still looking out for me. I ask grandma for a sign and then she cuts the deck to her favorite card.

Now, if the spectator says, “Wow, you’re amazing!” I reply with, “Huh? Amazing because I have a dead grandmother? What does that mean? Lots of people have dead grandmothers.”

If they say, “Tell me how it’s done.” I act as if I misunderstand the question. “I don’t know. I guess on the anniversary of your death your spectral energy is more powerful, allowing you to move physical objects. As long as they’re not too heavy, of course. That’s what the ghost experts say, at least.”

I simply just maintain the premise after the trick itself is completed. You can do this if your premise/story is strong. You can’t do this with a weak story like, “I have magical powers.”

Soon spectators learn that I don’t want praise, and questioning the “how” of the trick will get them nowhere. This forces them to either A) just sit with the mystery for longer—which is what my analytical-minded friends tend to do. Or B) engage with the fiction as if it were real—which is what my creative friends tend to do. Both of those are good options, as far as I’m concerned.

So that’s how I recommend answering the “How did you do that” question in social situations. Lean into the premise you established. The reason I do this is not to get them to believe the premise. I just want to get them to focus on the idea that it’s not the trick alone—and if it fooled them and how it works—that’s important. What’s important is how that trick fits into the story and the experience that they just had. The way you get people to understand that is by bringing it back to the premise, rather than with a clever comeback or by moving on to something else.

Long-Shots

Do you have any stories of tremendous luck or synchronicity during a performance? Given that you perform a lot, I would suspect you do —BP

Hmm… I think you’d suspect wrong. I probably do have some stories in that vein, but they haven’t stuck with me.

The craziest thing that ever happened to me in the “statistically unlikely” category actually happened to me when I was alone. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it on the site before. This was five or six years ago. I was reading a lot about the Open Prediction. And I was reading something like, “After they’ve dealt the face down card, they don’t need to deal the rest face-up. It’s boring and takes too long. Instead just have them turn the rest of the cards face up and spread them.”

That didn’t make sense to me, because with an open prediction, each turn of a card is meaningful, even after they’ve set aside their selection.

So I wanted to test what it felt like from the spectator’s perspective. I grabbed a deck of cards, shuffled it up, and thought, “Okay, my open prediction is the 4 of Diamonds.” I dealt cards face up, one at a time, then dealt one to the side face-down, and continued dealing the rest of the deck face-up, one-by-one. At some point I knew I was probably going to turn over the 4 of Diamonds, but I wanted to experience what it felt like up to that point. Did every card feel meaningful or was it something you’d just want to get over with as quick as possible? The more I dealt, the more excited I got because the 4 of Diamonds didn’t show up. I was literally having the experience a spectator would, where every card had weight to it. And more and more weight the longer it went on. It felt like watching a no-hitter in baseball, where every pitch could be the end of it.

But as it so happened, I did flip through the rest of the cards face-up without finding the 4 of Diamonds. I turned over the card I’d set aside face-down, and there it was. The universe had successfully performed the Open Prediction on me.

If that happened today, I might have stopped right there. These days I’m more into the idea of fully accepting and going along with low-level mystery and seeing meaning in coincidence. Now I would say, “Well, I decided to see what the Open Prediction felt like and the universe gave me that exact experience.” And I wouldn’t have messed with that perfect moment.

But five years ago I was a little different and I needed to try it again. So I did… and it worked again! Twice in a row I performed the Open Prediction on myself and it worked. A 1 in 2500+ plus chance of that happening.

And so I tried it again.

But that time it didn’t work. I’m not sure what I would have done if it had. I sometimes think about that. What if it had just kept on working? But only when I was alone and doing it for myself. I probably would have gone crazy.

When actually performing for people, most of the stuff I do is 100%. So I don’t really try and take advantage of lucky breaks or coincidences or things like that. But I do have one story in that area and it happened just a few weeks ago.

I collect enamel pins and I buy every one that my friend Stasia produces.

She had this one with a cat in a mug of tea on a book.

I ordered one, but then forgot I owned it and ended up buying another one later on.

No big deal. It was $10 or something and I would definitely have no trouble finding someone else who’d like it.

Then I had an idea to incorporate it into a potential trick. I’d give someone 12 blank cards with different hobbies/interests written on them. I’d ask them to choose their three favorites. Three of those cards in play would be: reading, cats, and tea.

I would use this on someone I had just met. I’d ask them to remove three of the cards that spoke to them and their interests most directly. Then I would just look at the cards they decided on and act as if this told me a little something about their personality that I could then use for this thing I was about to show them. So it would just feel like a little introductory game/experiment that would lead into something else. But I figured that someday someone is going to choose those exact three cards and I would be able to immediately manifest a pin for them that included the three things that resonated with them most clearly. It just seemed like that would be so strong.

And the very first time I tried it on someone, she took out: books, tea, and cats. I didn’t even need her to turn the cards over before I knew, because I had marked those three.

I sat still at the table, with the pin held between my hands. (I assumed I wouldn’t need it, but I wanted to be prepared on the off-chance I did and then just get rid of it afterwards, rather than have to steal it out of my bag if I did end up needing it.)

I couldn’t believe my luck. Here I was with this person I barely knew. She had chosen three things completely freely from a group of 12 subjects. She didn’t even know that I knew what they were yet. And I had a cute, perfect reveal waiting in my hands to give her. It was a real fight to play it cool

My hands were casually clasped together in front of me. I asked her to grab my wrists. I asked her to tell me which cards she removed. She said, “Cats, reading, and tea.”

I said, “Uh… okay. I wouldn’t have guessed that. But I’ll see if I can make that work.” I focused on my hands and started squeezing them together slightly in rhythm. “I’m going to create a tiny gift based on your interests. A memento of this encounter that is just for you.”

I stopped the squeezing, told her to cup her hands together, and dumped the pin out into her hands. She, understandably, lost her mind.

For completeness sake, here is the list of subjects/interests I gave her to choose from.

• Tea

• Cats

• Reading

• Yoga

• Wine

• Dogs

• Knitting

• Beer

• Video Games

• Television

• Comics

• Chocolate

I tried to subtly nudge the choices in my direction. I knew I’d be performing for a woman, so there are a couple options that are more traditionally male interests. Knitting is more of a female interest, but it’s not super common. Then I put a few more options that are innocent sounding, but you might not choose them as interests that define you because you might think, “Does this make me sound [lazy] [fat] [like a drunk]?”

Again, I wanted the narrowing of options to be subtle. I wanted someone to be able to look at the options after and think, “There’s no way he could have known I’d pick these three. I could have easily gone with [x, y, and z.]” I didn’t want to pick nine obscure subjects like “banjo playing” or “1930s Universal monster movies” because then it would be obvious I was steering them towards certain choices.

So I figured I had it narrowed down to about 6 options that were more likely than the others, and I guessed it wouldn’t take me that long to find someone who would pick the three from those 6 that I wanted. Ultimately, I have no idea if the psychology behind the objects I chose worked, or if I just got lucky. But that was my thought-process going into it.

I love the effect, and I love the giveaway, and I’m working on some ways of doing something similar, but that don’t require luck. (Of course it won’t feel quite so free, but that’s the necessary trade-off.) I’ll let you know if something pans out.