My Internet is Down: Day 1

Hey kids. I'm in a somewhat remote location and the internet here is down and won't be fixed until 2 pm Thursday. So I have to do everything on my phone until then and I hate typing on my phone. That means short posts for the next few days. And I probably won't be answering emails much either.  

I had a gigantic post scheduled for today but it will have to wait until Friday. It's a good one, check back for it. 

Soooo... I can't type and I can't upload video so don't expect anything good until Friday. I know... since I'm stuck on my phone, I'll choose a photo of the day from my photo gallery. 

Hmmm... I don't have anything magic related... Oh here's a good picture. My friend, Pat, was traveling through Ohio, the birthplace of Wendy's, which is something they hilariously say with pride. He stopped at one of their restaurants and saw a painting of Wendy's founder Dave Thomas. Dave was sitting at a table writing in his notebook and surrounded by a number of Wendy's employees worshiping their guru. My friend thought this was a really funny painting (because it is). I tried to find a print for him for Christmas but unsurprisingly this isn't a hot commodity. So instead I took the photograph he took of the painting and had it woven into a blanket.

Barring an unexpected revival of the internet connection here, it will be this type of nonsense for the next couple of days, so you may want who wait until Friday to check back.  

Under the Influence

There's this guy named Jason Ladanye. He's a very skilled magician and he put out a book and dvd set recently. He is a disciple of Darwin Ortiz and this manifests itself in his style of performance, choice of material, presentations, manner of speaking, style of dress, enunciation and vocal timbre, way of holding the cards, etc. It actually seems like he's doing an impression of Darwin. Or like he ate his liver and now he possesses his soul or something.

And when I first saw Jason's videos I was surprised because -- and this might be embarrassing to admit -- I didn't know that Darwin Ortiz was considered a performer people wanted to emulate. Like I knew he was incredibly skilled, and he was well respected for creating very strong routines (in the traditional sense) and had written a lot about theory. But as a performer he always struck me as somewhat affected, a little stiff and unnatural, and very rehearsed. Now, to be fair, I'm sure to most everyone else his style comes across as "professional," and it probably is. In that sense, "very rehearsed" is obviously a good thing. Don't look to me for advice on professional performance standards. I usually perform sprawled out on a couch with someone's feet in my lap. But it was still a surprise for me to see someone mimic his style so closely.

So when I first came across Jason's videos I was a little dismissive and thought, "What a tool. He doesn't even have his own style?" But I'm beginning to realize that a lot of what I saw as "imitation" is just someone who was inspired by an artist he really loves. And my smug superiority was really just a result of me not having a performer who I admired as much as he did Darwin.

And what led me to this realization is that I did find a performer who has completely bowled me over and who is now infecting everything I do.

Her name is Victricks (on Youtube) and she's a young magician from Russia. Now, because you are all so bad at telling when I'm being sincere (which I guess means I'm bad at expressing sincerity), I want to make it clear that I genuinely have great affection for this girl, as do all my friends who I show her videos to. She's my favorite magician on youtube. For a young magician I think she shows a ton of promise and I have no doubt that if she sticks with it she could be a really great close-up magician in the future, and she's developing the presence and charisma of a stage performer too if she decides to go that route. She has become a more dynamic performer in just the few short months she's been posting to youtube. I really hope she finds a great mentor to take her to the next level. Oh, and she has actually fooled me (at least on first viewing) with a couple of her tricks.

I wasn't kidding when I said I was adopting some of her performing quirks. When I perform for friends who I have shown her videos to, I like to do so in a style inspired by her. 

This first video is her at her surliest (at least at the beginning) and it always makes me laugh. From this video I have taken:

• Her opening line: "Hello everybody now I show you trick."
• The little finger dipsy-doodle she does to display the bottle.

This is an unusual one for Victricks because it involves a little camera trickery, but I have totally adopted the "lean back and wait" pose in some of my tricks. It's not quite a trance. It's almost like a mini nap-break. I also use the slight mistranslation of "usually/usual" for "normal" which appears in a few of her videos.

Want to feel inadequate? Here she is in a fancy little outfit (which for all I know could be traditional Russian pajamas or something) performing an effect most of us have tried at one time or another, but probably not this well.

And here's her latest trick. It fooled me the first time around.

If you like her stuff, subscribe to her channel and give her positive comments. Or find another young magician and do so for him/her. We spend a lot of time getting riled up by the losers who are exposing tricks and it's completely understandable to be bothered by it. But I'm not sure freaking out about that helps the art of magic at all. Instead let's maybe become benefactors of encouragement for those starting out in magic who seem to be coming at things from the "right" direction.

Sundry Drive No. 10

In regards to Monday's trick, a few people emailed me to ask what a "thumper" is. What are you, dumb or something? You are dumb? Oh perfect, then you'll appreciate this description taken from Mentalism for Dummies.

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We're always counseled to make our sleights look as close to the real action as possible. What I mean is, we're told if we do a double lift it should look as close to the normal mechanics of turning over a card as it can. But then we abandon that level of verisimilitude with our presentations. I think your presentations should be just as realistic.

You know how some people will perform a trick and the presentation they will use is that of a "sobriety test"? Well, if you do that I think you should really take it all the way. When the person "fails" the test you should grab their collar and slam them against the wall. "You drove here today, you sick bastard? My fucking children are out on those streets, goddammit!" And then you should knock some of his teeth in.

---

I really think people need to be more precise with the names they give their effects. Like some people call things The Levitating [Something] when really it's just The Floating [Something]. Also, this trick is called Countless Cookies, when really it should be called Eleven Cookies, or, based on this performance, Genuine Nightmare Material. 

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By now everyone is onboard the Rob Zabrecky train. It's clear he is doing great work with a strong style and original perspective. But I want to take the opportunity to pimp his old band, Possum Dixon. Back in the mid-90s, you were probably too busy listening to Hootie and the Blowfish, you bland honky, so you likely missed out on Rob's band. If you like alt-rock/power-pop, do yourself a favor a track down some of his music. Here is one of my favorite songs from their final album (with magic-related cover art).

Dear Jerxy: What Makes A Good Premise?

Dear Jerxy: I'm not sure I understand your position on premises/presentations. You say that the best ones are unbelievable but then you shit on ones like the ambitious card where the card keeps coming to the top because it's the most ambitious one in the deck. Isn't that an "unbelievable" premise? How do you differentiate a good unbelievable premise from a bad one? 

Oh No, I Can't Think of an Alliteration in Omaha

Dear Oh No: There is a very simple question you can ask yourself to discern if your unbelievable premise is a good one or a bad one. And that question is this: "Is this a thing?"

Examples -

Premise: "I'm going to restore this rope by going back in time to before I cut it."
"Is this a thing?" - Yes. The notion of time travel is a thing.

Premise: "The deck is going to whisper in my ear the name of the card you took."
"Is this a thing?" - No. The idea of a whispering deck of cards is something you just made up so you could do this trick.

Premise: "I'm going to float this dollar bill by trapping a ghostly spirit inside of it."
"Is this a thing?" - Yes. The concept of ghosts exist outside of your magic presentation.

Premise: "This coin will disappear from my hand and join the others because it's lonely."
"Is this a thing?" - No. Coins don't get lonely.

My favorite types of premises/presentations are unbelievable, interesting, and familiar. And by "familiar" I mean that they should deal with concepts that exist in the real world. Things an audience can relate to and grasp easily. The "Is this a thing?" question identifies the "familiar" concepts.  

When you use a familiar presentation you are engaging the spectator in the world they live in. This makes it easier for them to connect with the magic and it makes your presentations automatically more expansive because what you're doing is a part of the mythology of their real world. When your premise is completely unfamiliar, i.e. "The jacks are the most jealous cards in the deck," then your trick exists out on an island. It may still be a good, entertaining trick but it will be hard to make it resonant or relevant to the spectator. Here's a tip: If your premise involves anthropomorphizing something, you're probably on your way to Shit City presentationally.

So my process for creating a good presentation is to first find a familiar concept I can relate to the trick. Then I think of a way to make it interesting if the concept itself isn't particularly interesting. Then, if the concept itself isn't inherently unbelievable (like ghosts, or multi-dimensional travel), I ratchet up the impossibility of an effect until the premise it's based on is no longer believable as a means of accomplishing the effect. Why do I like an unbelievable premise so much? Because I know it's possible to present a trick that is so strong that, for a little while, people will believe the unbelievable. And to me that's much more fun than getting them to believe the believable.

The Dr. Phil Deck

Things you need to know to understand this post.

1. Dr. Phil - He is a television psychologist here in America (and undoubtedly in other parts of the world as well) who likes to build people up or break people down. 

2. The Phil Deck - In the traditional version of this trick, you ask your spectator to think of a card and you say that you're going to name it. They think of a card and you say, "I'm going to name your card... it's Phil!" This is greeted with incredibly mild amusement. You then ask them to tell you what card they were thinking of. They say, for example, the three of diamonds. You say, "Yup, that's Phil." Then you pull out the deck and show them that the cards all have a different name on the back. And on the back of the three of diamonds, it says "Phil." 

It's a fun enough trick. Not earth-shattering, but decent. But the nice part of the Phil deck is that you can have whatever you want appear on the card they name. You can buy "blank" Phil decks and customize them. I've found most of the customization ideas somewhat underwhelming -- often it involves having numbers on the backs of the cards (instead of names) or putting a company name on the back for corporate work. I don't know, that's all fine, it's just not my scene.

I've probably bought a dozen blank Phil Decks in my life and have used them for a few different purposes. This post will cover one of those ways and I'll mention another one (probably my favorite one) in next Tuesday's post. I don't know how useful they'll be to others, but there's definitely something valuable in the idea that these decks can be used for something other than just having the punchline of the trick on the back of the cards.

The Dr. Phil Deck

Like Dr. Phil himself, this moment (it's not exactly a trick) can be used to build people up or tear them down. I generally only perform for people I like so I've only used it for the former, but I'll describe both ways. 

Build Them Up

Imagine you have a friend who's dealing with some upheaval in her life. A divorce, break-up, loss of a job, whatever. You've invited her over to watch a movie and order dinner and maybe take her mind off things for a few hours. She notices a book on your coffee-table. Something like the one below that you can pick up off Amazon for a few bucks used.

Maybe she thinks this is a little unusual for you because you normally don't go for this type of nonsense. You explain that it's just an offshoot of your interest in playing cards and you thought it would be a good idea to know what the meaning of each card supposedly is. "I don't really believe in the cards' ability to predict the future. But I do think there may be some validity to the idea that certain types of people gravitate towards certain cards, and you may be able to get some insight into yourself by knowing what the meaning of a card you're drawn to is." You pull out a deck of cards that you've created as "flash cards" for yourself in order to help you memorize the personality traits associated with each card. You spread through and show her how each one has a few words or sentences on the back with some personality traits. Then you pull out the Ace of Spades and the Queen of Hearts. "If you ask someone to think of all the cards in the deck: Ace thru King, clubs, hearts, spades or diamonds. And to let their mind scan thru all the cards and eventually settle on one, then you will have some understanding into who they are as a person. It's not magic. It's just an unconscious preference for certain things by different types of people. Which just makes sense. The numbers, letters, and symbols of a deck of cards aren't meaningless, so of course different types of people will be drawn to different cards in a manner that's not completely random. Like if you went through the visualization process and settled on the Ace of Spades, it would suggest that you are," you turn the card over and written on the back it says:

You are generally good natured but are easily manipulated and lack creativity. 

"So that's probably not the most flattering one," you say. "And if you named the Queen of Hearts it would suggest," you read the words off the back, "That 'You have a great capacity for love and a big heart, but often immature notions of what a relationship entails.' And that's because a lot of young girls tend to think of the Queen of Hearts, so you can see why that would be accurate."

You spread through the cards and show her other message that discuss people's work ethic, the way they handle finances, their tendency towards laziness and so on and so on.

"Let's try it with you," you say. "Imagine all the cards in a deck of cards spread out in front of you. Try to see all of them in your mind. The number cards, letter cards, clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds. Some of them might be visually appealing, but it's better to let yourself be drawn to one seemingly at random. Can you picture the cards in front of you? Okay. Now let all of them fade away except one. Which one are you left with?"

"The five of diamonds," she says.

"Okay, let's see what that means." You spread through the deck and pull out the 5 of diamonds and turn it over. It reads:

You underestimate your ability to deal with change. You have vast reserves of strength that will get you through times of turmoil. 

---

So what have you done here? You haven't done a trick. You haven't told someone their fortune. You've just told them something about themselves that might be useful to remember in a particularly trying time.

I've performed this twice in my life for two different people and both got somewhat emotional and said almost identical remarks. Something along the lines of, "That is exactly what I needed to hear right now." 

B-b-b-b-but Andy, you've always said you don't like when magicians or mentalists play things as real. Aren't you playing this as real? Isn't this being manipulative?

Here's what I don't like. I don't like when people try to make others believe they have a power they don't really have. What I mean is, I don't like magicians who want others to walk away from their performance believing something untrue. I think that's bad for the spectator, bad for magicians, and bad for the art of magic. 

This, however, is not a magic trick. It is a way of you sneakily introducing just what someone might need to be reminded of at a vulnerable time in their life. And shining a spotlight on that message in a way which might allow it to be accepted more than it would if you were just to offer it as some advice.

This isn't like trying to justify being a fake psychic by saying, "Well, I make people feel better." That's just a bullshit rationalization. You're not taking money for this. You're not invoking some phony power. And you're not lying.

I can comfortably say you're not lying because what's written on that card is true of essentially everyone. Are you in the midst of some upheaval in your life that feels overwhelming? I promise you that you are underestimating your ability to deal with that change and that you have vast reserves of strength that will get you through this time. 

We may need to be reminded of it from time to time, but that's just a statement that's true of the human animal. It's essentially a self-fulfilling belief. You might say, "Oh no, not me, I'm bad with change." But look, if 99.99% of the population, including everyone you know and love, died in a zombie outbreak, within two days you would be doing a fucking shoulder roll out from behind a parked car to blast some zombie's head off. You have the capacity to adapt to change, you just don't like to because it's a pain in the ass. I get that.

You can put some other positive message on the backs, of course. Just try to make it something that A) is true, and B) protects or enhances the other person's self esteem. (That should generally be your goal with any interaction with someone you care about.)

Tear Them Down

Of course, this can be used for the opposite purpose as well. In fact, I'm sure this idea will be much more popular than the previous one.

You're performing magic, maybe at a party with friends, or even in a professional walk-around situation. Some guy is being a total cocksucker and annoying you and everyone else. You've put up with him for a while but now you've had enough.

"You're a lot of fun," you say to the a-hole. "Can I try something with you real quick? I've been studying some psychological research that says people's choice of playing card says a lot about them. This isn't like fortune telling or something. Essentially they reverse engineered it by interviewing 1000s of people, asking them to name any card in the deck, and then they seeing what the people who named those cards tended to have in common."

You pull out a deck with phrases on the back of each card. 

"I've actually been conducting the test myself in an unofficial way and it's astounding how accurate this is. I don't want to influence you by showing you the front of these cards just yet, but for example, people who named this card tended to be entrepreneurs, people who named this card tend to excel with languages, people who named this card were generally children of divorce." The cards indicate these qualities with definitive statements and the percentage likelihood of this being true based on the study.

For example, those three cards would read:

96% - You are an entrepreneur
99% - You are good with languages
98% - You are a child of divorce

You continue to spread and show all the different traits that the cards might indicate. Most are positive or neutral.

"So, just for fun, name the first card that comes to your mind? The Queen of Clubs? Okay, let's see... Oh this is interesting, and pretty specific." You turn it over and it reads:

100% - Your dog's butthole smells like your cock

"It's consensual, though, right? I mean, I'm not sure if it's defensible either way. But I truly hope you're not forcing yourself on him. Or are you just rubbing up against it without actual penetration? I guess that's better..."

Okay, so it doesn't need to be that crude (although that's probably how I would do it). It could say something like, "100% - The last time someone referred to you when you weren't in the room it was as, 'That idiot.'" Or, "100% - You are the most dispensable one in your circle of friends. Deep down, you know this." Or simply, "100% - You are not exceptional in any way."

Again, this is not really a trick. Is it a heckler stopper? Kind of. I mean, if you consider making someone cry or instigating a fistfight to be stopping them from heckling, then it definitely is. 

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Tuesday: Like the indians did with the buffalo, we're going to butcher up the Phil Deck and use every part of it. It will serve as an emotional hook, presentation, method, misdirection, and surprise ending for a trick called The Mad Lib Ploy.

Field Report: Beginner's Magic

"I want to learn magic!" she says. Which usually means, "I would like to immediately have the knowledge and skill to do the cool, fun stuff you've shown me after you've practiced magic 20+ years. What I don't want to do is have to trudge my way through the dull, boring things and practice to actually learn this stuff."

It was my girlfriend, Lynn's, birthday and since she had shown an interest in learning magic I had planned this moment for her.

She opens up one of her presents and it's a beginner's magic book. "That one looks pretty good," I say. "It comes with a DVD which will probably make things easier to learn."

Later that evening we are laying together, flipping through the book. "Oh, that's a good trick," I say. "Let me try it for you."

I ask her to pick a card. She slides out one card, the ace of diamonds, and slides it back into the deck. I ask her to shuffle the deck. She hands it back to me. "Now watch this," I say. I cut the cards numerous times, each time reciting a letter to go along with the cut. "H-A-P-P-Y-B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y. Now, you had a free choice of any card in the deck, and you shuffled it back into the deck, correct? All I did was spell "Happy Birthday" and we landed on one card, your card, the four of spades," I say, flipping the card over. 

"That wasn't it," she says.

"Ok... Oh, it's the one after the last letter. Sorry. Your card... the eight of spades?"

"No," she says.

I fan through the cards. "Huh.... well... whatever, when you learn the trick you'll have to show it to me because I guess I forgot it." We turn on the tv and watch for a few moments.

"Sorry," I say, "this is driving me crazy." I flip through the magic book and start reading and say under my breath, "But that's exactly what I did." I pause a moment. "Would it be okay if I watched the explanation off the DVD? If I don't it's going to bug me all night." She says that of course it's okay and I take the DVD and pop it into my laptop. I cue it up to the right segment and start watching the explanation with her.

The magician/author on the screen says, "At this point the selected card should be seventh from the top." He executes a series of cuts and says, "And that will bring their selection to the top of the deck. In this case, the king of clubs."

"Of course, the king of clubs wasn't your selection, was it Lynn?" the guy on the DVD asks my girlfriend. 

"Oh my god," she says.

"No," the magician says, "I think this was your card." He gives the King a flick and it turns into the Ace of Diamonds. "Happy Birthday, Lynn."

She sets the laptop aside and climbs on top of me and grabs my collar in mock anger. "I knew it!" she says. 

"Knew what?" I ask. "That the author of that magic book would make a special video for you where he changed a card into the card you freely picked earlier?"

She sighs. "No... I didn't know that. I just knew something was up. You wouldn't mess up my birthday trick."

"Good point," I say.

She leans down so our noses almost touch. "Tell me," she growls.

"Tell you what?"

"How he knew my card!" she whimpers.

"Oh," I say, "it's in the book."

It wasn't in the book. It was a one-way force deck with some indifferent cards thrown is as convincers. But I knew it would get her to read the book more carefully.

How did I do it?

Well, the first thing you need to do is write a somewhat popular magic blog and garner a few fans, one of whom should be a latent beginner's magic book author who is a good enough guy to be generous with his time for someone he doesn't know. This guy should be a Joshua Jay type. For me it was, in fact, Joshua Jay.

Then, five years after you shut down your blog you should email this guy and say, "Hey, I plan on getting my girlfriend one of your books for her birthday. Would you mind shooting a video and emailing me the file so I can use it as part of the gift?" Once you get the file you just have it on your computer and act like you're playing the DVD, but really you're just firing up the file that was sent to you. Presto. 

Am I a Pretender or an Addict?

I got this intriguing email from Daniel Madison a few days ago.

Oooohhhh... what a juicy little question. Am I a pretender or an addict? You know, the embarrassing thing is... I've never even thought to ask myself that! Talk about the unexamined life not being worth living.

Well I thought I owed it to myself to really dig deep and find out. You know, considering it is Cheat Week and all. (Cheat Week is when we go down to the docks and operate the business end of a glory-hole. Wait... no... that's Fleet Week. Cheat Week is... hold on... I have no idea. Let me find out. Oh... got it... it's some uninspired Ellusionist promo.)

Okay, now... I think I may be a Pretender. I've acquired my skills "for entertainment, not survival." Although there was that one time, while traveling through darkest Africa, when I bashed that guy's skull in with one of those wooden ducks that finds a card from Collectors Workshop. Of course, it turned out that the guy I killed was my interpreter and traveling partner, Obatku, and not a spooky ghosty or a bear as I had thought in the moment, so it's questionable how much I needed to kill him for my "survival." In retrospect, when he screamed, "Andrew, it's me, Obatku, please stop beating me with that duck!" I should have taken a step back and reassessed the situation. But as it was happening I just thought, "Fuck no. This bear can talk and imitate people? That's the most dangerous creature in the world. This ends now!"

So, perhaps I'm actually an "addict."

Let's look at these criteria again:

• They McMillan switch their credit card for yours.
• They haven't picked-up a tab in years, and they probably won't EVER.
• Cheating consumes their life,
• and their only real friends [are] the court cards. 

Well... I'm enough of an "addict" to know it's actually the MacMillan switch. So I guess that's a point in my favor. But can you imagine what a badass you would be to switch out your credit card for someone else's! I can see myself doing that. Like my buddy puts his credit card down to pay for dinner and I -- super nonchalantly -- just MacMillan switch in my own credit card! Hahaha, the sucker! Oh, fuck... wait... now that means I'm paying for dinner. Waitress! Come back! What the fuck did I just do? Why would I ever switch in my credit card. That's something only a moron would do...

Wait.

Ohhh... I see now. Is "addict" some kind of code word for having an intellectual disability? I mean, if you met someone and they're like, "This is our son Petey. Look out, because Petey will switch in his credit card for yours. He's been racking up a hell of a credit card bill this way, which he is in no position to pay off. In fact he hasn't picked up a tab in years, and probably won't EVER. How could he? He's essentially unemployable. Pick up a tab? He's 34 and wears a diaper and you want him to buy your club sandwich, you creep? Look at him. His only friends are the court cards. If that's not the most depressing thing you've heard in your life, you don't have a heart. Excuse me... what's that, sweetie? The Jack of Clubs wants to look at trucks out the window? Okay, darling, you two go do that."

What are some other indications of being an "addict"? Your walls are smeared with feces? You don't know your multiplication tables?

Of course, Daniel Madison, who is incredible with a deck of cards and has some brilliant ideas, is the perfect person to differentiate between a "pretender" and a real cheating "addict." He has been pretending to be a card cheat since he arrived on the scene in magic. He has a whole goofball origin story of how he used to be a crooked underground gambler until he was nearly beaten to death after he was caught cheating, which led him to take up magic. The story is ridiculous and blatantly untrue (although Magic Magazine did, embarrassingly, write a profile on him where they reported it as if it was completely credible). I mean, I have no doubt he got the shit kicked out of him early and often, but that goes for 90% of you in magic. However, "The boys at school stuck my head in the toilet, gave me a swirlie, and now my only friends are the court cards," doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Daniel had enough esthetic sense to not want to be associated with magic so he made up the story of magic being his fallback. I understand why he did it, but unfortunately he couldn't really keep his story straight and the timeline was in no way believable. (It was essentially, "I sprouted my first pube, and then I became an underground gambling legend.") I completely get why he didn't want to come out originally as just a guy who was really into magic. But I think we're approaching a tipping point in magic's perception. Not where it's cool, but where it's not inherently uncool. And I think Daniel Madison, with his skill and style, could help in that transition if he wasn't so apologetic about why he's in magic in the first place. So come clean, Daniel. Join us. Become a pretender. Embrace it.

Whiskeys up!

Oh, and before I end this post commenting on an email ad I received, I'd like to quickly mention another one. Did anyone else get this sick email?

Uhmmm... okay.... I admit I didn't read this super carefully, but it appears that Vanishing Inc is planning on selling Andi's baby and Josh's wife? Or maybe raffling them off as some sort of promo? This is some sick, twisted shit. I'm sorry... I like to have fun on this site, but sponsoring white-slavery in order to push a few more copies of Blomberg Laboratories, or whatever, is simply not acceptable to me. Sorry, Vanishing Inc, but this demented little promotion gets a big "No Thanks" from the Jerx.