Monday Mailbag #28

Just FYI, the day I run out of mail-related gifs is the day I stop doing the mailbag posts which is also the day I shut-down the site and the day I kill myself because why even bother without mail gifs?

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After reading today's post [Last Friday’s post] I performed a bare-boned version of Sort of Psychic to a friend tonight. It went over really well, so thanks for pointing it out.

I don't know what your presentation is for this trick, but I think it would be interesting to frame the guessing part as a process of 'tuning' your spectator. After each guess, you would calibrate whatever the apparent method is for the final act of cutting to his card. You could change the settings of a robotic glove, or maybe press different spots on his head if you go for a presentation involving phrenology. 

Okay, this may sound irresponsible, but if it can be done completely safely, it would be fun to sting acupuncture needles in his neck or his hand. If he guesses correctly, you insert another needle in his hand, and if he's wrong you remove or readjust a needle you've already put in him. And you make a big deal about making him sense where is card is.

I have a friend who's knowledgeable about acupuncture, I'll ask him if there are spots on your hand where you can easily sting needles without any pain, nor any chance of damaging your friend's Qi. I'm not sure I'll ever perform something like this, but it's always good to know that it can theoretically be done. —IM

Yes, you’ve nailed exactly how I present this, as a “tuning” of the spectator.

The first round (with the three piles) is just a quick “baseline assessment” of their natural ability. Then the next three rounds will involve their guesses under different conditions (if I’m doing a phrenology presentation, for example, then it would be three different head pressure locations).

Regardless of how well or poorly they do, those phases will allow me to “triangulate” the perfect condition for the final test (which, of course, they will ace).

And I love the idea of using acupuncture needles. I can’t imagine it can actually do any harm to put the needles in lightly somewhere. But don’t take this as me saying you should do it.

By the way, here’s one more tweak for Sort of Psychic. There’s one less-than-ideal situation that can arise, and that’s where the spectator’s card is always on the top of the same packet each round. This will happen 1 in 8 times, and it doesn’t look great because it makes your mixing seem questionable. To prevent this from happening, after the first guess between the two piles, give the pile that does have your spectator’s card in it a shuffle or cut before assembling the piles. This way if the spectator’s card was on top, it no longer is and won’t be the next round.

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So, 12 years ago here in Brazil, a priest had a crazy idea to raise money for some temple or something.

He then performs Blaine's Ascension, but with the balloons attached to a chair. He flies off, disappearing into the sky. The only news from him after that was a telephone call asking for help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelir_Ant%C3%B4nio_de_Carli

And that's the story. He died. Later his body was found. At least the lower half of it. 

It's kind of a tragic story that begins like a joke and ends like a gory movie. —RD

That’s legitimately terrifying. For some reason the phone call is the spooky part to me.

It would have been cool if Blaine bumped into the rotting upper-half of his corpse up there during his stunt last week.

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I am learning a routine where I reveal the spectator’s card but I don’t want to just name their card.

I was just wondering do you have any post on your blog for interesting ways to reveal the spectator’s card that takes the magic off the performer. —CE

I don’t know that I have a specific post about this. The problem is, when you’re revealing someone’s card, you’re revealing something essentially meaningless to them. It’s not like revealing a word or a name, which is much easier to frame as having some other meaning beyond you just showing off. So you’ve kind of set yourself up to do something “magician-centric” the moment they select a playing card in the first place.

That being said…

• You could reveal it through “automatic writing.”

• You could pretend to call your “friend who has psychic powers” and reveal the card by allowing the spectator to overhear your half of the conversation. “So, you think it’s a red card? He thinks it’s a red card, is that right? Ok, yeah, that’s right. What about the suit? He thinks it a Heart.” Etc, etc.

• You could reveal it with a Ouija board.

• You could read a letter your grandma sent you before she died that reveals the card at the end. If it’s a freely selected card and not a forced one, you have all the time in the world to nail-write something in as you read the letter. And if it’s shaky and looks like shit, blame it on your grandma’s failing motor skills.

• You could pray to Jesus and ask him to let you know what the card was through his divine power. “Jesus said it was the 7 of Diamonds… What’s that?… It was the 6 of Diamonds? Huh. Well he was pretty close, you have to give him that.”

The question is really what type of story do you want the trick to tell and/or what type of story would the person you’re performing for be interested in hearing. When you answer those questions, that will guide you towards how you might want to reveal the card.

How to Sway a Jury

I’ve been on jury duty twice in my life. The first time we found the guy innocent, the second time we found the guy guilty. (The second time I was on jury duty coincided with me writing the 11th issue of The JAMM, and I mention it briefly there.)

I want to talk about the first case I was on, where the guy got off. Originally, when we went into the jury room the first vote went 10-2 in favor of conviction. I was one of the two who voted for acquittal.

Because I’m pretty good at debating and making a point, and because there wasn’t any really solid physical evidence tying the person to the crime, after a couple hours of deliberating, the jury was split pretty much in half. But there were still five or six people arguing to find him guilty.

I couldn’t really argue my position any better than I already had. We weren’t really debating the facts of the case at that point. We all agreed on the facts. But some people felt like the confluence of a few bits of circumstantial evidence proved guilt, whereas I (and the others on my side) felt it didn’t.

For those outside the United States, here a jury must have a unanimous verdict, and they must find the person guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Which doesn’t mean “beyond all possible doubt,” but just that there is no “reasonable” doubt. It’s this nebulous standard that was getting in our way.

I looked at the evidence and I felt like the guy was possibly guilty—maybe even probably guilty—but there was still a decent chance that he had nothing to do with the crime.

I don’t think the other group looked at the evidence and saw anything close to 100% chance of guilt, but they just had their minds sort of made up, so they were hard to sway.

After many fruitless hours of trying to get people to reconsider their initial assessment of his guilt, this is what I said that finally seemed to turn the tide in the room. I said, “Let me ask you, would you bet 3 months of your salary that he’s guilty? If somehow we could know for sure, would you take that bet now? If you’d hesitate to take that bet, why?”

Someone asked me, “Well, would you bet 3 months of your salary that he’s innocent.”

And I said, “No. But I wouldn’t bet that he’s guilty either. So if I wouldn’t bet either way, I have to vote ‘not guilty.’”

I’m not saying that’s the best logic in the world, but I think it sort of compels people to think of the situation a different way if they’re locked into a guilty vote. It takes a fairly hazy standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and translates it to dollars and cents. Can you put someone away for years when the evidence isn’t strong enough for you to risk a few months salary?

I don’t know how much that argument played a part, but within in an hour of saying that, the jury had agreed to acquit.

The defendant would go on to rape and murder 62 people.

No, that’s not true. That part didn’t happen..

Footnote: I once told this story to a defense attorney. He said he liked that logic and that he was going to use it in a closing argument sometime. Apparently he tried but the judge stopped him. I’m not sure if there was some particular legal issue with what he was saying or if the judge just felt it was manipulative, not germane, inappropriate or something else. If you’re a defense attorney, feel free to give it a shot and let me know how it turns out.

The Juxe: Mainstream

I was asked in an email what “mainstream” artists I listen to. It’s not an easy question to answer. While I listen to some Top 40 type of stuff, there isn’t a ton that I would consider myself a huge fan of. So to get close to answering this question I decided to apply this criteria:

Take all the artists in my itunes library (4614).

Take out any that I don’t own at least two albums by.

Take out any that haven’t released an album in the last five years.

Rank them by the number of followers on their youtube channel.

By that metric, these are the top three most “mainstream” bands I follow along with their most popular song (based on youtube views). And then one of my favorite songs by the artist.

#3 - Run the Jewels - 343,000 Youtube subscribers

Legend Has It - 44 million views

“Legend Has It” probably is my favorite Run the Jewels song (I’m a basic bitch), but here’s another favorite of mine, mainly because it has this bar which I say all the time:

And I refuse to play humble as though my dick itty-bitty
I got banana dick, your bitch go apeshit if she hit it

#2 - The Strokes - 1.18 million Youtube subscribers

Reptilia - 158 million views

Man, it’s hard to pick a favorite Strokes song. I’ll go with “Is This It?” from their debut. The bass line (wait for it) is one of the most outstanding achievements in all of music, as far as I’m concerned.

#1 - Childish Gambino - 5.36 million Youtube subscribers

This is America - 713 million views

Gambino’s best tracks are the ones where you have to go to genius.com to keep up with all the references and jokes. Freaks and Geeks is a good example of that.

Tweak-End: John Bannon's Sort of Psychic

Four years ago, I reviewed John Bannon’s Move Zero DVD and wrote the following:

My favorite trick in this volume is Sort of Psychic. A spectator shuffles the deck. The magician gives her about a third of the deck to look at and think of any card. She never names it, it truly exists only in her mind. There is a little test of psychic power that happens now where you mix up the cards and she tries to guess three times which half of the packet her card is in. (The magician never looks at the faces of the cards.) Then the full deck is assembled and shuffled by the magician. Now, you ask her to cut anywhere and she cuts exactly to her freely chosen mental selection which she’s never named up to that point.

In the years since writing that, I’ve made a little tweak to the handling which I feel boosts the power of an already good trick. (You’ll have to know the trick for this post to really make any sense.)

The first thing I do is that I remove the Aces from the deck and keep them in my pocket. You could actually do this openly (if you were doing the trick completely impromptu). But it’s usually something I do before the trick and don’t mention it.

I give the deck to the person I’m with and ask them to shuffle it as much as they want and to think of any card in the deck, (“Except the aces, because they’re so common.”)

I split the deck into three equal piles. I have her see if she can psychically identify which pile contains her card. Whether she’s right or wrong, we eventually find the pile that does. And from there I go into the trick as John originally describes it. (If you’re not familiar with the trick, this added step fits in perfectly with the premise of the effect.)

So the difference is, rather than the magician pulling out 16 cards and having the spectator think of one of those cards, the spectator is free to think of any card in the deck that they want. Eventually you do get to the point where they’re thinking of one of 16 cards, but from their perspective they had a free mental selection of any card at all and the whole deck is in play.

Starting the trick with such total freedom adds quite a bit to the effect. It’s not, “You thought of any card from this packet.” It’s, “You thought of any card in the deck. You never spoke its name. You never touched it or removed it. It exists only in your mind.”

[Note: If you were doing it totally impromptu you would remove the aces openly and say. “I’m going to have you think of any card in the deck. But I’m going to take the Aces out of play because they’re too commonly thought of.” And just set them aside.]

Club Sandwich Varietals

Here’s an email I received recently…

I am a big fan of Club Sandwich by Andrew Normansell. Mark Mason markets the trick so it is often thought of as a Mark Mason trick.

[If you’re unfamiliar with the trick, it’s a repeat sandwich effect. The jokers find one selection, that selection is lost in the deck. You claim you’re going to find the second selection, but the first selection reappears. Then when you go to look for the second selection in the deck, it’s now switched with the first selection between the jokers.]

I wanted to share [the presentation I came up with] with you since the presentation can be used as a Universal Presentation (that has a Jerx style theme) for other tricks as well. So, you may find it useful as well.

Below is a "cut and paste" from my notes (my notes are often in block capitals since they are just rough drafts):

1. DO YOU THINK WE ARE LIVING IN A SIMULATION? I THINK WE MIGHT BE AND I THINK THE COMPUTER GENIUS WHO IS RUNNING IT IS ALSO A MAGICIAN.

LET ME EXPLAIN.

ONE OF THE OLDEST RULES IN MAGIC IS THAT YOU NEVER PERFORM THE SAME TRICK TWICE.

I NEVER UNDERSTOOD WHY THIS WAS A RULE OF MAGIC. BUT I THINK I DO NOW. THE GUY WHO IS RUNNING THE COMPUTER SIMULATION THAT WE CALL REALITY IS ALSO A MAGICIAN. AND HE HATES TO SEE THE SAME TRICK TWICE.

LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I TRY AND DO THE SAME TRICK TWICE.

[PERFORM CLUB SANDWICH]

YOU FIND THE FIRST CARD.

AND WHEN YOU TRY AND FIND THE SECOND CARD - YOU FAIL.

YOU SAY THAT THIS IS THE PART I NEVER UNDERSTAND. WHENEVER I TRY AND PERFORM THIS TRICK AGAIN - THE FIRST SELECTION CHANGES TO THE SECOND CARD.

[POINT TO THE SKY]

SOME GUY UP THERE KEEPS SCREWING WITH ME.

—JM

I see where you’re going. But I think the “magician running the simulation” thing might be a bit too cute for me (and I like cute). It sort of violates my “is this a thing” rule. Is the idea of the simulation a thing? Yes. But the idea of a magician running it sort of pulls it back into the “patter” dimension.

It’s a fine line. And I’m not sure I can completely justify my reasoning here. But, “I’m going to show you we’re in the simulation,” is a good premise in my opinion. “I’m going to show we’re in a simulation and a magician runs it,” feels more like a jokey type of presentation/patter.

Here is how I would present Club Sandwich. I haven’t done this yet (I will), but I think it’s a pretty decent premise that people can relate to. And it accounts for one of the weird things in the handling—the fact that one card is signed and the other is not.

I’d perform it for a single individual.

“Can I get your help with something? I have a trick I’m practicing but there’s some sort of… problem with the method. There’s a glitch of some sort and I’m trying to figure it out.”

I’d have the person select a card (the force card).

“It tends to get glitchy when I repeat it, so I’m going to have you play the part of two spectators. This card will be yours. Pick out another… Okay, that one will be the other person’s. To keep them separate, write down the name of someone else on that card.”

They’re high as fuck, so they write down Dooble Gibbs.

“Perfect. So the 7 is your card and the 4 is Dooble Gibbs’ card.”

The cards are lost in the deck. I’d take the jokers from my pocket, drop them face up on the deck and the first card, the 7, would appear between them.

“Okay, perfect, that’s how it’s supposed to happen. Now, put the 7 back in the middle of the deck. Now we’ll go for Dooble’s card.”

The jokers would be placed on top again and again a card would be found between them. I’d set the deck down before revealing the card.

“Okay, let’s see. Damn… it’s the 7 again. See? This is what keeps on happening. It’s some weird glitch.”

Then I’d reorient the cards (as necessitated by the method) and toss the sandwich down away from me, and towards the spectator (if I know they’re not the grabby type).

I’d pick up the deck, spread it with the faces towards me. “Yeah, Dooble’s card is still stuck here. What is going on here?” I’d ask myself.

I’d close up the deck and pound the edge of the deck against the wall or the side of the table, as if I’m trying to jostle something loose to make it work. I’d spread the cards again and look through them. “Nope. What the hell…,” I’d close the deck and hit it harder this time. Spread through a final time. “Ah, okay. Now it’s worked. The 7 is back here which means now Dooble’s card should be….” I’d have them slide out the card between the jokers to now find the second selection.

I just like the idea of a trick being “glitchy” (which I’m sure has been used before) and that the only way you know to fix it is to rap the deck hard against something and just hope that knocks it into working order. I think that’s something people can relate to. So it’s an action that will feel very “human“ but the result of it should feel pretty magical. Which is a nice juxtaposition.

Weekly Carry Challenge To Build Your Repertoire

Do you have any thoughts on how to build up a 100 trick repertoire? This has been a goal of mine since you mentioned it years ago but I’m having difficulty with it. I’ll identify tricks I like but never really master them well enough to perform. I’m wondering if you have any advice other than “keep better track of what you want to perform.” —GO

If I was building up a 100 trick repertoire from scratch—and I wasn’t in the situation like I am now where I’m performing for people regularly—this is what I’d do…

First, I’d start keeping a list of potential tricks to add to my permanent repertoire. I would put a star next to the tricks that I knew I currently had the technical skill to perform (that is, the ones that don’t include a sleight I haven’t mastered or some gimmick or other item that I don’t own).

On Sundays I would scan the list and see what trick jumped out at me as something I’d like to work on next. And throughout the week I would carry with me whatever is necessary for the trick and find some way to perform it that week. So maybe I’d have a particular gimmicked coin in my pocket each day and I’d be looking for an opportunity to (hopefully seamlessly) work my way into that effect with someone. Ideally not the same person each week.

If the end of the week was coming along and I still hadn’t had the chance to perform it, then I’d just grab someone and say, “Hey, I need to show this to someone before the end of the week for a project I’m working on. Do you have two minutes?” It’s not as nice as working it smoothly into an interaction, but it will do.

The thing is, it’s hard to consider a trick part of your “repertoire” until you’ve actually performed it for someone. Until you do, it’s just this loose butterfly floating around your garden. It’s kind of in your possession, but you need to catch that shit and pin it down. So the goal is to get one performance of it out of the way. Once you do, you can now consider it in your repertoire.

At one trick a week, you’ll have your 100 trick repertoire in a matter of a couple of years. Maybe a little longer, since you will end up trying some tricks and deciding you don’t want to add them to your repertoire. That’s a perfectly fine pace.

You should then practice your repertoire once a month to keep things fresh in your mind. That may sound like it would take a lot of time, but most tricks you can speed through in a minute at most if performing it for yourself. Some only need to be run through in your head because they don’t really require any moves.

Once you have your 100 trick repertoire then you just need to maintain it, continue practicing it, and swapping tricks in and out when you find things you like better.

Building your repertoire takes time, but in my opinion, it’s one of the more fun parts about magic as a hobby. It keeps you from just mindlessly reading magic books and watching video lectures. Now you’re taking in this content with an eye towards what may be good for your repertoire. And the process of building it gets you out and performing. And then once you have your repertoire established, you will find more opportunities to perform than ever before, because you have this wide range of options to choose from.

While We Were Out

While we were away, David Blaine’s Ascension stunt, with Youtube, got delayed due to weather. I have no idea if this will end up being cool or lame, but I’ll definitely be watching. I love David’s ability to create such compelling visual imagery in his work. No one else really comes close.

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Gee, imagine the depravity Sydney’s bottom paranormalist is capable of.

This is Terrence Brabazon. Our latest GLOMM evictee. A true piece of shit. Go rot.

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So Blaine moved his stunt from New York City to Arizona. He’s not the only one ditching NYC these days. Due to high rents, coronavirus, increasing crime-rate, and other factors, there has been a fairly significant exodus of people out of the city. No one really knows the extent to which it’s an issue at this time, since we’re still in the middle of it all.

James Altucher wrote an essay called New York Is Dead Forever and Jerry Seinfeld responded.

Part of Jerry’s response resonated with me in regards to the virtual shows a lot of performers are stuck doing:

There’s some other stupid thing in the article about “bandwidth” and how New York is over because everybody will “remote everything.” Guess what: Everyone hates to do this. Everyone. Hates.

You know why? There’s no energy.

Energy, attitude and personality cannot be “remoted” through even the best fiber optic lines.

That’s sort of my feeling with virtual shows. They seem to cap out at about 60% of the impact of showing people magic in person.

And, from what I’m hearing from magicians over email, they seem to have given rise to a new Easy Answer. It’s the, “I don’t know what you did, but I bet if I was there in person, I could figure it out.”

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This trick, Pluck by Christian Grace, came out through Vanishing Inc.

It’s a trick where a selected card is lost in the deck and you suggest you’re going to “pluck” it from a dribble of falling cards. But you actually find two different cards. A 2 and a 6. You decide that means you’re supposed to count to the 26th card, which you do, and find the spectator’s card.

I don’t really have a fully formed opinion about this trick. It’s the sort of thing I’d have to try out to see the type of reaction it gets. My initial instinct is that I don’t really like the change in direction from, “I’m going to pluck out your card,” to, “These two cards I plucked out are cards I’m going to use to count to your card.”

It doesn’t quite violate the notion of The Trajectory of Expectations, because pulling out two cards that count to your card is, technically more difficult than just pulling out your card.

But it does replace a very simple, straightforward trick with something slightly more convoluted, and that doesn’t seem like the ideal progression.

But, as I said, I can’t really be sure how it plays without trying it out.

The main reason I bring it up is to spotlight this post from the Cafe thread discussing the trick.

Say what? I have absolutely no idea what the Tiny Plunger effect has to do with anything, but it’s random inclusion in that thread made me laugh.

I encourage you all to use this statement anytime you want to get your “two cents” in, but really don’t have much to contribute to the conversation.

I feel better just knowing I have it in my back pocket in those times when I don’t know what to say.

Them: “I find it fascinating the way Leni Reifenstahl distorted the diegetic sound in Triumph of the Will in a manner that was seemingly inspired by German art cinema.”

Me: “Hmm… yes… yes… indeed. Of course, I’ll stick with my Tiny Plunger. More entertainment value.”