Me: An Intimate Portrait

This comes from my old blog. I could have sworn I'd reposted it here already, but I can't seem to find it. So maybe I didn't. And since the vast majority of the people who read this site weren't around for the old one, I'm reposting it now so you can truly get a peek into my soul.

From The Magic Circle Jerk, January 9th, 2004

People email me and ask who I am, or if we've ever met. In all honesty there is no reason why anyone should know who I am. But I did want people to get to know who I am (as a person) a little bit more. So I went to a lame website and found one of those lame email questionnaires that people love to send around the first time they ever get an email address. And I filled it out for you, loyal reader. I hope it gives you a better idea of who I am and what I'm all about.

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS? I live with my grandma in an assisted living facility because it was cheaper than an apartment and I love playing Canasta.

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? The Bible by Jesus H. Christ.

WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? My elbow.

FAVOURITE BOARD GAME? Marvin's Magic Game. 2nd Place: Strip Marvin's Magic Game.

FAVOURITE MAGAZINE? 1980's era Genii magazine because I hate quality editing and typesetting and I live my life according to Tripp's Tips. 

FAVOURITE SMELLS? A freshly mowed lawn. Oh, and pussy.

FAVOURITE SOUNDS? Babbling brook. Oh, and babbling pussy.

WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD? Accidentally getting your balls stuck in your asshole and then having to shit real bad but being nowhere near a bathroom and having to clench your ass real tight.

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? Jeff McBride.

ROLLER COASTER, SCARY OR EXCITING? Roller coasters are totally awesome! Was totally awesome a choice? 

HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE? I never answer before 75 rings, so I don't seem desperate.

FUTURE DAUGHTER'S NAME? Ms. Darling Q. Princess.

FAVOURITE FOODS? Broccoli stem casserole, broccoli stem stew, and pickled broccoli stems.

CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? If we're talking ice cream, it's vanilla. If we're talking cake, it's chocolate. If we're talking bitches, then brother, I likes all kinds.

DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? Well, let's just say I don't like to not drive not not fast.

DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? Well, you could say I do, but there isn't much "sleeping" going on. Know what I mean! (sound of hi-fives all around). 

STORMS - COOL OR SCARY? Oh, definitely scary. Because when there is a storm that means God's angry, right? If so, what could ever be "cool" about God being angry?

WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? The strong-silent type.

IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE? I'd meet one person alive. Because if I met a dead person I'd be all like "Oh shit, a ghost!" or "Oh shit! A zombie." Which wouldn't be cool because I gave up swearing for my New Year's resolution. And I'm scared of ghosts (and zombies).

FAVOURITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK? Whole milk.

WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN? Librataurius

DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? No, I'm allergic.

IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANTED WHAT WOULD IT BE? Grammar Host at the Magic Cafe.

EVER BEEN IN LOVE? I loved Crystal Pepsi. But they don't make it anymore.

IS THE GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL? Well, if it's half full of whole-milk or Crystal Pepsi, I don't care what semantics we use...I'm there! 

FAVOURITE MOVIE: Santa With Muscles

ARE YOU A LEFTY OR A RIGHTY? I'm a multiple amputee.

DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE CORRECT KEYS? Yed. 

WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? A dead hooker.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE NUMBER? Hmmm. Let's see. What was it again? Wait. No, hold on, I know I have one. Let's see. Hmmmmmmm. Okay, okay, okay. One. Yup, one. NO, WAIT-- TWO!!! No, I was right the first time. It's one.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FAILING? It's one of two things: The fact that I bite my nails or that I secretly hate black people.

FAVOURITE SPORT TO WATCH? Women's naked jumping-jack national championships.

SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU. He's got a Huge Cock.

PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND. Hugh Cockman.

PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Pat, that guy's a Huge Cock.

Dear Jerxy: Transitioning

Dear Jerxy: The post you wrote on the process you go through to acclimate people to a different style of performance was exactly what I needed. I've followed your blog since almost the beginning and it changed the way I approached a lot of my performances. Sometimes this translated into bigger and more intense responses than I've ever received from tricks. But sometimes it seemed to lead to confusion. Not anymore. I have my own variation on the path you laid out to transition from simpler effects to the immersive style and it's been working extremely well for me. I'm having more fun and so are my friends.

Signed,
Currently Undergoing Nice Transition

Dear CUNT: You didn't actually ask a question there so it's strange for me to shoehorn your email into a Deary Jerxy post, but I'm nothing if not resourceful. I'm going to use your email as a chance to talk about something I use to help me gauge someone's interest in traditional magic and to establish a baseline with them that I can then use to differentiate what they're about to see. It's a tool you can use to more quickly transition into something a little different than the "typical" close-up magic trick.

And that tool is the RAT. Every repertoire should have a RAT. A RAT is a:

Really
Average
Trick

My current RAT is Cameron Francis's Deceit Treat. 

This is about the most average effect in magic. I don't mean that as an insult. That means half of all magic is worse than this. The trick is fine. It's just not the sort of thing that will grab their attention by being super visual, or capture their imagination with an intriguing premise. It's a fooling but bland trick. The number of five star reviews for it on Penguin is... odd. This should not be a 5-star trick in your repertoire. Again, I'm not saying it's a bad trick. It's not a bad trick. It's just not a great trick either. 

But why bother performing an average trick? The purpose is to establish a baseline that we can then use as the "standard" that future effects differ from. I use this sort of thing when I'm hanging out with someone for a day or a weekend and it's not feasible to use the full induction process as outlined in the post mentioned in the original email.

So I will perform the RAT for someone in a very straightforward style. Average thru-and-thru. Now we see how they respond. If they're really into it, then great, I can transition to stronger stuff and get even better reactions that. If they're not into it then I can use that reaction and build on it.

Let's say I get the sense they're not that impressed. They say, "Oh, yup, that's my card. Neat." I can join in with that sentiment. "Eh... yeah. I guess it's not so great. I'm a little rusty. I haven't been practicing this sort of thing much." And then I go on to explain why I haven't been working on that type of trick much. 

"I've actually been spending a lot of time working a trick that only happens in your mind."

"I actually found this old book my aunt kept that outlined these weird rituals, and that type of thing is much more interesting to me these days than these sorts of tricks."

"I'm not really into the sleight-of-hand type stuff as much anymore. I've been intrigued by some things on the fringes of science"

Now I transition into some other style of effect and I'm using their reaction from the first trick to justify showing them the second.

But you still might be saying, "Why bother showing them an average trick first? Just go into what you feel is the better trick." 

Here's why:

1. A lot of my "better tricks" require a certain level of faith/commitment/investment from the audience. Leading off with that can feel awkward for people. But if you start with a trick that doesn't require much from them, and establish that you know what you're doing on some level, you can ask for more with trick #2. It's like if I had some weird sexual fetish. First I'd just bang you the normal way, so you can get comfortable with me. Then I'd get all freaky on you.

2. The contrast between the standard trick and some of the more unusual presentation styles I enjoy is something I want to highlight. But you have to keep in mind that most people have never seen competent sleight of hand magic in real life. They don't really have a grasp of magic done the "traditional" way, so they're not going to be able to appreciate what's interesting about a deviation from the norm. It would be like if you had never had pizza before and your first introduction to it was some bizarre variation with a white sauce and grilled asparagus. You might enjoy it, but you wouldn't really grasp how this was different from the standard. But if you can demonstrate something with a typical trick, then the differences inherent in the next trick will be magnified

Again, I don't subject people I perform for regularly to average tricks. If they're people I will be in touch with long-term, then I use the slow burn method described in the other post. This is something I use with the people who pass through my life for a brief period. The Really Average Trick establishes a standard that I can build off of or transition away from in a way that feels natural, rather than just hitting someone new over the head with something crazy and unexpected.

Coming Tomorrow Night

It's back to school time, which mean it's time for the professor.

And here is our JAMM Muse for September, Gibson.

I don't care what my dumb parents said. Dai, had the right idea. Smoking is cool!

Gibson said, "Oh, I know a trick!". What a surprise when it turned out to be Any Man Behind Any Curtain from the JAMM #5.

And somehow she performed it on a rotary phone! She's unbelievable.

It took two packs of bubble gum cigarettes before finding a couple with some good powdered sugar smoke puffs. Step it up bubble gum cigarette manufacturers! Take pride in your work. Don't think I won't swoop in and take over the bubble gum cigarette industry. I'll do it! That's an $1800 a year business worldwide!

The JAMM #8 is coming to your email late tomorrow night, NYC time. If you place your subscription before then, it will start with this issue (otherwise it will start with the October issue).

Feces Peanut Butter Cups

Today we have two unrelated posts (that taste great together).

First, an anecdote from this weekend. 

I was supposed to meet Friend A and Person B for lunch today. Friend A is our mutual friend, but Person B is a stranger to me. 

So Person B and I show up for lunch, order some drinks, wait around for a bit, and then Friend A has to cancel out on us. So it's just me and this stranger, Person B, getting lunch together. It was almost like a forced blind date, and I wouldn't quite put it past that being the intention of Friend A.

One other piece of information. I had four mini peanut butter cups in my hoodie pocket. The kind that are wrapped in foil. I had snagged them from Friend C's place where I was at before lunch. But don't get confused. Friend C isn't important. Screw Friend C. All that matters is that he had mini peanut butter cups.

Person B and I got along great, and, as we were wrapping up our meal I decided to gently fuck with her. I pulled out a peanut butter cup and said, "I'd offer you one, but it's the last one I have." I unwrapped it, left the foil on the table and continued our conversation. As things went on I picked up the foil, balled it up between my palms where it regenerated into a full peanut butter cup again. In other words, I had one of them palmed in my hand, I switched it in for the empty foil, and then while apparently just rolling empty foil between my hands, I would let my hands go from slightly cupped to flat, like there was something pressing them apart. The peanut butter cup regrew. 

Now, she didn't say anything the first time. So I did it twice more. And, as with the Distracted Artist style, I didn't put much focus on it, but I was still confused when she didn't comment on it at all. The moment had somehow slipped by again and again and again. I'd eat the pb cup, roll the foil, make a new cup, eat that, roil the foil, make a new one, etc. etc. And no comment from her. Maybe it was too subtle.

We hugged, said goodbye, and went our separate ways. 

Later that evening I got this screenshot from Friend A, of the text conversation she had with Person B.

Distracted Artist works best when they have some idea that you're into magic (this girl had no clue).

---

The Ultimate Rep

Reps are a way of getting your spectator to question their concept of how magic tricks work—a way to keep them from immediately dismissing it as being done with some mechanical gizmo or sleight-of-hand. Often this is enough of an answer for people. But using a Rep with a trick can prevent them from going with this easy answer.

Even with something like a Tenyo trick, which is considered a toy by many people, you can still get people to wonder if maybe there's something more going on that they don't quite understand.

For example, take Burglar Ball. A ball penetrates into a plastic box. Presented as is, it can be a fooling little trick. But there's nothing that really grabs an audience about it, except that one moment where—PLOP!—the ball falls into the box. It's a good trick, but not one that's going to stay with people forever.

If you try to dress it up with some intense symbolic presentation about the ball representing something and the box representing something else, the trick actually becomes much stupider. 

So maybe you don't mess with the trick, and just present it as a little moment of mystery. That's absolutely fine.

But I want to point out what a Rep can do with such a trick.

Imagine you perform Burglar Ball and concentrate quite a bit before the ball penetrates, and right after it does a trickle of blood comes out your nose.

Now you have this repercussion of the trick that doesn't align with what the spectator would naturally assume the method was. Maybe they'd assume it's a trick box or a trick ball, and even after examining them they'd perhaps think you handled them in some funny way (you did). But a nosebleed, brought on by... what... too much concentration? Well, a tricky box or a something like that wouldn't require such intense concentration, so what's really going on?

If one of the purposes in magic is to increase the sense of mystery for your spectator, a Rep is certainly a way of doing that.

Now... the Ultimate Rep.

I will never do this. You will probably never do this either, unless you're batshit crazy. 

Take any trick. It can be the first trick you ever learned. Maybe the one where you clip two paperclips to a dollar bill and they fly into the air and connect when you pull the ends of the bill apart.

Now do that trick and right when you get to the climax, forcefully and vociferously shit your pants. Eat a lot of broccoli and drink a bunch of coffee so it's a real loose mess back there. Then wear silky shorts with no underwear so it sprays down all over your legs. 

"Unnnngggghhhhhhh!" you say. "Dammit. They said that could happen. I'm sorry."

What? They said that could happen? People shit their pants enough from the paperclip trick there needed to be a warning in... wherever it was you learned it?

No, it's not a good idea. I understand that. I mention it as an image that will hopefully stick with you so in the future maybe you'll think of repercussions you can build into your presentation that will disrupt people from just resorting to the "easy" answer for how something was done. 

More and more I find it's the elements that I put around the trick itself that really capture people's attention.

Also, if anyone does shit their pants for a trick, please film it. You will be the proud recipient of 2 Jerx Points.

---

Look at these fucking dingbats...

Gardyloo #32

It's Gardyloo #32. That rhymes. And you know it rhymes. Why deny it?

---

Oh look, the GLOMM signal was tripped again.

I hope this isn't true. Never a good feeling when I need to conduct an old-fashioned GLOMM-booting.

Here's the story. We'll see how it plays out.

---

Hey, speaking of creeps, I want to try to get to the bottom of something. Does anyone have any information about the story of mentalist Ford Kross convincing a woman she was cursed and that the only way to remove the curse was for her to have sex with him?

A reader recently mentioned it in an email, and I've found some references to it in some old message board posts, but I was wondering if anyone had more information. Did it really happen? Did she take him to court?

It certainly seems like a story that got around a bit and one that maybe he even told himself. I'm just curious about it. Is this just some weird rumor that never actually happened? Or was this guy a genuine sociopath who really did this? Or—almost equally pathetic—did he make the story up because he thought mentalism was populated by the type of guy who would be charmed and impressed by the story of someone using threats and coercion to get a woman to have sex? It's fascinating to me either way. 

I won't disclose anything anyone tells me (or who said it) without checking with you first. So feel free to say whatever you want to me completely off the record. I'm not a blabbermouth.

---

Jeff Haas passed along this video to me a couple months ago and I just got the chance to watch it. It's a talk from the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco by Laura E. Hall, an escape room designer. It's somewhat long (an hour) but worth it for anyone who has an interest in puzzles, games, escape rooms, VR, and, indirectly, magic as well.

In my opinion, the most important thing for magicians is something she says early on:

"A side-effect of our relationship with screen-based entertainment is that the value of in-person experience begins to rise."

I find this to be so true. There's this pessimistic attitude that all people care about is burying their heads in their phones. And so, to co-opt that, you have a lot of people creating magic for youtube, instagram, and facebook. And that's fine if that's what you want to do. But what I've found is just what she stated in the quote above: Now, more than ever, people really cherish an in-person, real world experience. If you can engineer these experiences for people you will be rewarded significantly. 

People have suggested that technology will make magic obsolete, but my experience has been that the ubiquitousness of technology has made my "real world" magic performances even stronger.

---

Joe Mckay, who has done a number of favors for this site, has asked that I shine a little light on this project of Chris Wasshuber at Lybrary.com. You can read about it below. If you're into magic magazines you may find it to be worth your energy to contribute. To be clear, this is not me asking for this, so don't go sending me your responses. Chris' email is below. I already know where all the good magazine effects are. They're in the JAMM.

I want to try an experiment which will only take a bit of thought from each
of you, but the rewards to each one participating will be huge.

Please email me your three favorite articles, effects, features, etc. you
have read in a magic magazine. Any magazine qualifies. Can be the big ones
Genii, Magic, LR, MUM, can be the old classics, Jinx, Sphinx, Hugard's,
Stanyon, Mahatma, Gen, Magic Wand, Magigram, can be smaller lesser
known ones like Oracle, Blueprint, etc. any magic magazine is fine.

Give it some thought. Your three absolute favorite items. I only need the
reference, the year/volume/issue/page number as well as title and author of
the article.

I will compile all of the submissions I get and everybody who contributed
their three favorites will receive the entire compilation free of charge.

In other words, you will get a crowdsourced best of the best from the world
of magic magazines. Sort of a treasure map you can use to find the most
interesting items. Depending on how many submissions I will get I might
even be able to rank them. If say an article is recommended by multiple
folks then that would be something worth noting in the compilation.

Please give it some thought. Reflect on your magazine reading over the last
years. What stood out? What articles do you still remember vividly? What
has helped you in your own progress as magician? What effect from a
magazine made it into your working repertoire?

Chris' email is wasshuber@lybrary.com

---

You may remember our friend and JAMM Muse for April, Alice.

Well, she is in a Maxim magazine contest that is going on now. And since she's part of our Jerx family, you may want to consider supporting her efforts by voting for her.

She's a doll and from what I understand, if she wins the contest, her entire Maxim spread will be based on Dan Harlan poses.