Until March...

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Today is the last post in February. New posts begin Wednesday, March 1st. Supporters will receive the next issue of the newsletter that day as well.

We’re going to be doing a round of magic testing at the end of March and we’re looking for someone 70 or older to help us as a performer. We’re looking for a friendly grandfather type. They don’t need to be a great magician. In fact, for this particular test, it’s better if they’re not. They would need to be available for probably two days—the exact dates aren’t set yet. They should be in the NYC area. And they will be paid. If you know of someone, send me an email with their information. [Update: It looks like we have someone to help with this. Thanks to those of you who reached out.]

Do any of the companies who produce magic ebooks create left-handed editions, swapping left-right designations and including alternate flipped illustrations? That seems like something that could be done easily enough. But maybe there aren’t enough left-handers to make it worthwhile. Or, as a left-hander, are you so used to flipping left/right in your head that reading an accurate version would be even more confusing?

I’m reminded of a reader who once sent me this picture of what he does when he has to learn a complex sleight.

Being a left-handed magicians seems like a nightmare.

Marc Kerstein’s app ISO is going up in price at the end of this month. I think the app has a lot of potential and I’ll be covering it in the next newsletter. If you’re considering it though, I would take the plunge now before the price goes up to $60 on March 1st.

You can take some comfort when you buy one of Marc’s apps. As I write in the next newsletter…

The good thing about Marc’s apps is that he always keeps them up-to-date. If history is a guide, you don’t have to worry about him abandoning this app and leaving it to wither away. It seems like he actually likes working on the apps. Other app developers treat their app like a kid they had after a drunken one-night stand with an Applebees hostess. They seem angry when anyone is like, “You gonna check in on that kid ever again?” 

They’re like, “Goddammit, what now? I didn’t ask for this!”

You can’t just put an app out into the world and support it for the first couple of months to get as many sales as possible. You have to raise that thing. And Marc is a good app-daddy.

Did everyone have fun at Blackpool?

Right before every well-attended magic convention takes place, I get a half dozen emails or so from people saying something like, “Hey, if you’re going to be there, let me know and I’ll buy you a beer.” I often consider pairing these people up and seeing what happens. Like I would tell one guy, “Meet me in the bar at 7:30. Sit in the seat all the way at the end. I’m a little nervous, so please just stare forward and don’t look directly at me until I say it’s okay.”

Then I’d tell the other guy, “I’ll be in the bar at 7:30, sitting in the seat all the way at the end. I’m a little nervous so I might not look at you at first. If you could caress my inner thigh gently that would loosen me up and get me ready to talk to you.”

If I plan it right, I think I could choreograph a full on sexual encounter between two people. Hell, if I really gave it some thought I think I could orchestrate a proper orgy. I’ll let you know how it goes.

See you all in March! When we all get ready to celebrate… uhm… St. Patrick’s Day, of course. And… well… Employee Apprecation Day? Look, it’s not that exciting a month. But we’ll be back here anyway. See you then.

EDAS: Princesses of Darkness

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This is an EDAS trick as described in this post. You can get the full details of that concept there, but essentially the idea is to have a display of “interesting” decks. Each deck is tied to a story. And then there is a trick that goes along with that story and that deck.

The inspiration for this idea was an email from reader Jeff F-M. He wrote to tell me that McDonald’s is giving away decks of Disney playing cards in their Happy Meals. The specifics of the presentation that follows are mine, but Jeff provided me with the original concept, so thanks to him for bringing this deck to my attention.

I made the mistake of trying to track one of these decks down by going to a few different McDonald’s. The first two I tried didn’t have the decks. They had some other garbage no kid would really want, like a poster or something. Eventually, I did track down a deck. It might be more efficient to just buy a deck off ebay. (Just the deck though. Don’t get your Filet o’ Fish off ebay.)

You also don’t need a McDonald’s Disney deck to do this. Any Disney deck will do.

The “story” that goes along with this trick will make more sense in a few months or years when this is no longer available at McDonald’s. But now is the time to snag the deck if you can.

So the idea is that someone would see this deck in your collection of interesting decks and wonder what the story is behind it. Why do you have this Happy Meal deck? What’s so interesting about this?

“Oh, you didn’t hear about that? Actually, that doesn’t surprise me. It was a big story for like a day and a half and then McDonald’s had it wiped from the internet.

“I don’t really know what is rumor and what’s reality, but I’ll tell you my understanding of it.

“You know there have been rumors for years that Disney has occult roots? Well, playing cards have a dark history in the occult as well. So when McDonald’s released these, there was some uproar online that these were made to attract kids to the occult and devil worship and stuff like that.”

The cards are taken out and shuffled.

“There were even people saying that they had inside sources and they were told that drops of Walt Disney’s blood that had been saved since his death were mixed in with the coloring used in the manufacturing of these cards.

“At the time, I didn’t buy any of this. I just thought it was a dumb urban legend. But I thought it would be funny to have a copy of the deck in my collection.

“Then about a week after I got my deck there was this video going around on tiktok where a guy showed something unusual that happens with this deck of cards. That video got posted everywhere. But then, like 24 hours later, the videos were all down and that guy’s account was nowhere to be found.

“Check this out. Cut off a packet of cards, like this. Now another one. And another one.

“This deck was shuffled. You cut anywhere you want. But look at the cards you cut to…

“666. The number of the beast. The devil’s number. We’re supposed to believe that’s just a coincidence? When you could have cut to any of these other cards.”

Display all the other values.

“We’re supposed to think that there’s not something fucked up about these cards? That they weren’t intended to indoctrinate children into occult activities? Are people that naive? I’m not buying it. Whenever someone cuts the deck like this for the first time, this is the result. It’s messed up. I don’t even like to have them out for too long.”

After letting the spectator look at the deck, you box up the cards and put them back in your display.

In fact, it might even make sense to have this deck stored separately in a sealed container.

Method

Any method that can be used to produce four aces can likely be reworked to produce three sixes. I use Bannon’s Directed Verdict. You could also use something like Chad Long’s Shuffling Lesson. Or whatever other handling you like.

Keep the deck in your collection with three sixes on top of the deck and you’re ready to go at any time. When you remove the deck to tell the story, you can either shuffle the cards yourself and keep them in place or palm them off and have your friend shuffle.

Mailbag #81

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Have you played around much at all with timing forces? If so, do you have a favorite? Or any thoughts? These feel the most clean to me as a way to force a card on people—GA

I’ve never used them that frequently, but I received an email a couple weeks ago asking for my thoughts on a specific timing force of Peter Turner’s. The writer included a video of himself performing the force and it looked great.

As with most timing forces, the general idea was that if you deal through the cards (or the spectator does) and you ask them to tell you to stop at any point, they will generally stop a couple beats later.

I’ve been trying this out a bunch the past couple of weeks and I found that the likelihood of this working was almost directly inversely proportional to how much magic they’ve seen me do. It didn’t really work on anyone I was close to, but it worked with some regularity on people I didn’t know too well.

Then it dawned on me:

The “timing” in a timing force is based on the spectator waiting the absolute minimum time they can to get the trick moving without being rude.

But if someone has seen you perform frequently in the past, it’s presumably because they enjoy watching you perform. Those sorts of people aren’t just looking to get a trick over with. They don’t mind prolonging the experience. During my recent testing, one friend of mine dealt through 42 cards before deciding to stop.

Timing forces also often require you to make the spectator feel rushed. That goes against the feeling I’m usually going for when I perform, which is a very comfortable, casual, “we have all the time in the world here,” type of feeling. Rushing people through something sends the psychological signal that the activity is unpleasant or boring.

In most tricks where I have someone select a card, I want that moment to feel incredibly consequential. I don’t want it to feel rushed or perfunctory, which is how it sometimes comes across to me when I’m viewing a timing force.

So those are the reasons I don’t see myself leaning hard into them. For my performing circumstances, they’re not ideal. For other people, I can see them being a good choice. And I agree that when you’re an outside observer watching them, they can look very fair.

I saw your post recently on Jeff Carson performing at Smoke and Mirrors. I called the theater today to let them know about Jeff's record and the guy I spoke with, [one of the owners of the theater], basically said he was aware of the situation but he sadly didn't seem to care, though he did say he would never let Jeff perform for HIS family. I think if Smoke and Mirrors is going to allow registered sex offenders to do shows there, the theater should be boycotted. What do you think?—JB

I’m not really a believer in boycotts per se. I think people should have the information and then act on it according to their own personal set of ethics and beliefs.

Jeff Carson (aka, Jeffrey Leach, Ron Geoffries, et al.) is a convicted sex offender who couldn’t keep his hands off a 10-year-old and molested her for years. She eventually summoned the courage to speak up after he was busted for molesting a different kid. You can read the original reports on this here.

After being convicted of his crimes he continued to perform for children. An excerpt from this article says:

On Wednesday night, I reached Leach [aka Jeff Carson] at his home in New Jersey and asked him if he thought it was appropriate for him to perform for children given his status as a sex offender. He told me that he didn’t want to comment. “Offering a comment would mean that I care,” he added. “And I really don’t care too much.”

Okay. He doesn’t “care too much.” Smoke and Mirrors Magic Theater doesn’t care too much about his past crimes either. Maybe you don’t care too much too. In which case, for you, this is an non-issue.

If it is an issue for you, don’t go to the show. If you think it reflects poorly enough on the theater, then don’t attend shows at the theater. If you want to make your voice heard even more on the issue you can make more noise about it online in a review or on facebook or whatever.

I’m not going to tell anyone how to feel. I’m just going to give you the information and say how I feel about it.

I know the show is for 18 and over, but I’m not sure the best defense for promoting a convicted sex offender is, “No, no, no… his sexual offenses were against a pre-pubescent individual. See? And he was only convicted of molesting that person for 6 more years. So… until they were 16? That’s like two whole years before the age cut-off for this show.”

Oh, okay. What is the policy exactly? If I rape an adult, can I do kid’s shows there in the future? Because it seems to work the other way around.

If you’re like me, your one concern might be that someone in the audience might see his show, enjoy it, and hire him for a future show that is for kids or attended by kids. You KNOW he’s not going to turn that down.

The good news is, from his marketing material, it looks like he only does hack, basic bullshit. So he’s probably not going to wow a crowd of adults.

Also, he’s not one of those guys you look at and think, “How could this guy be a child molester?” He at least has the decency to look 100% like a creep who wants to touch kids. If I walked into a room and this guy was there and he wasn’t sniffing a pair of some kid’s dirty underwear, I’d think, “Oh no, what’s wrong? Are you having a stroke?”

Kids on stage, hands in pockets, belt askew, hastily tucked-in shirt. Yeah, that tracks. And he chose this picture to put on his website. “Here’s a good shot of me,” he thought.

I pray he’s an investor in the Smoke and Mirrors Magic Theater or something. Then I can at least understand why he was given a show there. If there’s no financial incentive and the theater was so desperate for performers that they dipped down to this child molesting, bland bitch, then magic is fucked.

Dustings #79

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Concerning a question in Monday’s mailbag where someone mentioned a person at Magifest who did a spongeball routine that was supposedly my creation, I said I had no clue what the email writer was talking about. I’ve only done one sponge ball routine in the past decade or so and didn’t remember ever writing it up.

Apparently, I did though. A few people wrote in to remind me of the sponge ball idea as one of many things mentioned in this post.

I don’t know if that’s what the person was doing at Magifest. But if he said it was my idea and it involved sponge balls, that’s one of the few ideas I have with them.

EDCeipt continues to be a big subject in my inbox. Thankfully now it’s more about the trick than the drama surrounding it.

Colin H. writes, “I actually like it a lot, but I was getting questioned about the receipts almost every time I performed it. I don’t live in an area with most of those stores. I started just saying they were fake receipts lol. I said they came with a toy cash register we bought for my daughter. It’s not an elegant solution but it explains why they don’t seem right.”

Someone said you could make your own receipts by going to the store and buying the items to make up what you need for the receipts. I mean… sure… if you want to make five trips and spend 100s of dollars on items you may or may not need in certain quantities in order to have gaffs that will last you a couple weeks… go ahead. It would be much cheaper and more efficient to just buy a thermal receipt printer and print out your own receipts. Which I think is the definitive solution for anyone who truly loves the idea behind this trick.

Coincidentally, I was in my friend’s car the other night having a conversation and at one point she opened her center console to get a piece of paper to write something on and she pulled out…

A bunch of old receipts?

No, not quite.

But close.

Three old grocery shopping lists.

Perhaps that’s a workable alternative?

My friend has a long pad that hangs on her refrigerator which she makes her shopping list on throughout the week. Then she pulls the top sheet off before her grocery store trip. These lists sometimes accumulate in her car because she doesn’t want to throw them out as they might have a phone number, a note to herself or a date to remember also written on them. So she just jams it into the center console to deal with later.

I’m not imagining a scenario where you carry around five shopping lists with you in your wallet. That would be at least as odd as carrying around five grocery receipts. But if you ever carry any kind of bag you could jam them in there and it wouldn’t be that crazy. Or this could be exclusively a “car trick.”

I usually carry something in my car that wouldn’t feel out of place there (an old lottery ticket, a pack of gum, etc.) but that is actually there for the purpose of showing someone something when I’m in a situation where I’m killing time with them in the car. I’m in that position once every few weeks, at least. So it’s not that unusual for me. And I can see myself with my friend, waiting for our take-out to be ready or something, poking around my car and asking, “Do I have anything interesting to show you?” Digging around, finding the shopping lists, dismissing them at first, and then saying, “Hmm… actually… here’s something we could try.”

And the lists could easily be marked with innocuous seeming scribbles, tears, and folds.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s too much effort for this particular trick. But it takes the “fake receipt” issue off the table. And because you could build the lists around stuff you actually buy, nothing would seem out of place to those who know you. Also, there could be other writing/information on the papers that could be useful in this trick or others. At the very least it could help justify why you haven’t thrown the list out.

And finally, I hereby bestow the idea of a binary sorting trick with shopping lists to Craig and Murphy’s. So now you can buy EDCeipt, transfer the concept to a grocery list, and use the trick with no ethical concerns that you’re stepping on the toes of Weber and Trono.

Unless someone else has already had this idea in the past in which case: Problem Unsolved!

Nicholas R. is repping GLOMM: Argentina with this sweet tattoo.

Note: You don’t need my permission to get a GLOMM tattoo. However, if you end up being convicted of a sex crime you must cover it up with the logo of the International Brotherhood of Magicians or some other organization that doesn’t have an issue with that sort of thing. Otherwise I’m sending someone to remove that area of your skin.

The Traditional/Social Performing Divide: Part Two

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Today I want to try and answer the question posed in the email in yesterday’s post that asked why some performers think, “The audience won’t notice [or the audience won’t care] if there’s something off about these gimmicked receipts [or whatever the prop may be that you’re using].” And why other performers can’t even introduce these things into an interaction without the person for whom they’re performing questioning them.

Yesterday we looked at how something you say can work just fine in a traditional style of performance, but would stand out in a social/casual style.

I’m going to work that around to the props you use as well. But first, another example of the Traditional/Social divide…

Copperfield has a really beautiful illusion where he plays his most believable role ever: a pervert staring through the window at two women in bed.

Imagine this trick didn’t have to be done on stage. Imagine it could be done in your home. You tell everyone to come to your place at 8 pm because you have an illusion you want to show them. Your friends show up and your present this amazing piece of magic to them. The girls disappear and reappear on the bed. Everyone is blown away seeing this happen right in front of them.

Now imagine you decided to perform this trick in a less formal way. Instead of putting on a “show” for people, you just want to have this moment arise more organically. You want to be hanging out in your bedroom with some people and then you make two of them vanish and reappear on your bed. What a crazy moment that would be.

So you invite a few people over and at one point you think of an excuse to have them follow you into your bedroom. The group includes the two people working with you on the illusion and then a couple of other friends who are the “audience” for this trick.

As a group, you walk into the bedroom.

What happens next?

What happens is that your audience takes a look at the structure in the GIF above and says, “This is your bed? What the fuck? You sleep on this? How can that be comfortable? Are you insane? Are you poor? Do you need money? We can get you a proper bed. We care about you.”

Now, for the first performer, this is a brilliant trick.

But for the second performer, they can’t even start the trick without someone questioning it.

This isn’t due to the quality of the performers, but due to the style in which they’re trying to perform.

Social performing is not just doing a trick in a casual setting. If that was the distinction, there would be nothing to talk about with it. Social magic is about blurring the lines between the performance and your everyday social interactions. It’s a more naturalistic type of experience. It’s still a piece of fiction. But it’s a style that’s akin to a mockumentary sitcom or a found-footage horror film. And if things feel false or contrived in social magic, it can stand out significantly.

The traditional style of showing people magic involves giving them a little performance or show. And in a '“show” people expect some artificiality.

So if you’re doing a “performance” and you pull out five receipts, it doesn’t matter if that feels contrived because a performance is a contrivance. The power of the method behind EDCeipt is that you could literally say, “Here are five fake receipts. I want you to think of an item on one of them.” And you would still fool them.

But if you tried to do a more naturalistic presentation where you “just happen” to have these five receipts on you, you’re likely going to get called out.

The strength of using receipts in a binary sorting trick is that it contextualizes a list of items. The strength of ProCaps is that it contextualizes a little cap you’re using to cover coins. It makes these things feel familiar.

But don’t confuse an object feeling familiar to an audience with an object feeling innocent to them.

Familiarity may help things feel more innocent, but if you have an object that plays a big role in the mystery you’re showing them, that item is going to be suspect to people even when it is the real thing.

The takeaway here is just to be cognizant of the style you want to perform in and then choose the material that supports that style.

With traditional magic, you have a little more latitude in regard to the objects you use when you perform, because—for better or for worse—they will be seen as props. Even if they’re “everyday objects,” people will still suspect there’s something special about them. The very first thing someone says in the first demo for EDCeipt here is, “Are those real receipts?” He is then clearly eyeing the receipts and reads off some information from one of them. This is before Craig has even asked him to look at the receipts. So to say they won’t possibly notice the location or the pricing is just nonsense. Some will notice, and some will find these things odd. Some will find the Tyvek receipts odd. Some will find the fact you have five receipts on you in the first place odd. But what you’ll find is that a lot of people don’t really care because they understand this is “theater” and these are “props.” And whether they buy into them as being real or not, it doesn’t prevent you from doing something they can’t explain.

With a naturalistic style of performance, people are unforgiving of anything if it doesn’t ring true. You can’t ask people to get more immersed in the presentation and use props that are too suspect. That breaks the spell.

In the previous post, Edward H. asked:

“How do people get their spectators not to notice these things? On facebook they said people don’t look at the receipts that closely but the trick REQUIRES them to look at them closely. Am I being gaslit? I’d accept that maybe I’m just a bad magician but I’ve had people comment on some of these issues before I’ve even really started the trick.”

I don’t think you’re being gaslit. Nor do I think you’re a bad magician. No matter how good you are, you can’t get people not to notice objects that don’t match up with their understanding of how those things look and feel. In fact, the more engaging a performer you are, the more attention people will give to the objects you bring into the interaction.

What’s more likely is you’re trying to fit a trick into a style with which it doesn’t mesh. If you really like the trick, I would go with a more traditional style where there is less heat on the “normality” of the objects in question. You’ll probably find you have something that’s still fooling. And then it’s up to you to make it entertaining in that style.

The Traditional/Social Performing Divide: Part One

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I said I wasn’t going to wade back into the EDCeipt drama anymore. And it really wasn’t my intention to do so. Despite the fact that I recently learned the girl I’ve been dating online for the past two and a half years was really Michael Weber catfishing me. And now, not only have I lost the person that I thought was my soulmate, he also has all these sexy pictures of me that he’s threatening to release as part of a new website he and Trono are working on where they rate magician’s genitals on a scale of 1 to 100. The site is called MagiciansGenitalRatings.com. That’s got to be illegal, right? And how fucking unoriginal is that website name? Ugh.

I actually don’t have more to talk about in regards to the drama surrounding this trick, but I have been getting a few emails asking if I have any thoughts on how to deal with some potential weaknesses in the trick itself. I have some thoughts. But it will take a while to get to it.

One of those emails I received was from Edward H. who said,

“[Regarding the receipts themselves] The Tyvek receipts feel strange, the stores aren’t common to my area, the addresses are far away, the prices are all wrong.

[…]

How do people get their spectators not to notice these things? On facebook they said people don’t look at the receipts that closely but the trick REQUIRES them to look at them closely. Am I being gaslit? I’d accept that maybe I’m just a bad magician but I’ve had people comment on some of these issues before I’ve even really started the trick.”

I’m going to help clarify what’s going on here. I think what’s causing the issue here is not about whether you are a a good or bad magician. The issue here is caused by whether you’re performing in a social style or a traditional style.

When ProCaps came out, I wrote a post about Uncanny Valley props. These are props that are designed to look like common objects, but they don’t quite reach that standard. And because they’re somewhat off, they might as well be all the way off. Because a bottle cap that does something magical is going to be suspect to begin with. And if it’s not clearly normal and examinable then it doesn’t matter that it’s an “everyday” object. It will just come off as a fake everyday object.

After that post I received three emails from people who said things like, “You were wrong about ProCaps. I use these at my restaurant gig and rarely does anyone question them.”

If that’s the only feedback I’d heard, I would have posted here that maybe my initial impression was wrong.

But I also received a bunch of emails that said something along the lines of, “I thought you were being overly cautious when you said people would notice something odd about the cap [or the stack of coins] but you were right.”

And there was a clear trend on the people who were having a good experience with the trick and those who weren’t.

The people who wrote to say they liked it were performing the trick professionally. The people for whom the trick didn’t work well for were performing it socially.

Now, because my site is written from the perspective of a social magician—and a large portion of my audience performs socially rather than professionally—I was getting much more negative feedback about that trick. If this was a blog about performing magic professionally, the feedback about the trick may have leaned positive.

A very rudimentary assessment of this feedback might have someone say, “Ah, the lowly amateurs didn’t like the trick because they’re not as good as the professionals who can pull it off well.”

But that’s not what’s going on here.

Here’s what’s happening. Traditional magic is a capital-P “Performance.” It’s a separate thing from the normal interaction you’re having with someone. For the period of time the trick takes, you are clearly “The Performer.”

In Social Magic, the magic trick is a more casual affair. The dynamic isn’t “performer and audience” it’s “you and your friend.”

And it’s because of this that everything is judged differently by the people to whom you’re showing the trick.

For this post, let’s consider a simple example. Imagine a standard magic line. “Hold out your hand… no, the clean one. Oh… that was the clean one.”

You can say this in a professional show and people may think it’s funny or not, but they won’t be confused by it.

You can also say it if you’re showing someone a trick in a traditional way in your living room. Again, they may think it’s funny or not funny, but as long as it’s in context of a PERFORMANCE it will come off as your SCRIPTED JOKE that’s part of the PATTER for your MAGIC TRICK. They can categorize this sort of statement.

But if you’re performing in the casual/social style, this line is going to confuse people because it doesn’t fit with that style of the interaction.

Imagine I’m casually chatting with a friend over coffee. I ask her if I ever talked about all the time I spent trying to bend metal with my mind when I was a kid. Like months and months in 5th grade. I could never get it to work. But then for like a six weeks when I hit puberty I could do it. But the ability left just as quick as it came. But sometimes, like if I look at a picture of Elle McPherson on the cover of the 1988 issue of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue…

I get some of that energy flowing again and I can sometimes get it to work just a little bit. I pull up the picture on my phone. I ask for a quarter. I ask her to hold out her hand. “No, the clean one. Oh, that was the clean one.”

Do you see how out-of-step that is with the social style of performance? The style that’s supposed to replicate a real human interaction?

Any scripted, jokey line is going to feel out of place in that style. And it’s not because my friend thinks this story I’m telling them is true. It’s just incongruous and doesn’t fit with a naturalistic style of performing.

You can imagine a dream sequence on the Simpsons. You can imagine a dream sequence on The Big Bang Theory. But you can also feel how out-of-place a dream sequence would be on The Office, yes? Why? They’re all just half-hour sitcoms. They’re all clearly fictional. Why can’t the The Office have a dream sequence? Or a laugh track? Or a flashback to when Michael Scott was a kid? Because those things don’t fit with the mockumentary style.

That’s what’s going on here. There are certain things (props, tricks, lines) that work perfectly fine in certain styles of performance but they don’t mesh well with others.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at this distinction further and hopefully have a better understanding of why certain props and tricks are great for performing in the social style and why others are much harder to work with. And how this translates into some talented magicians thinking a particular trick is great, while other talented magicians can think it’s unworkable.

Dear Jerxy: Invisible Braille

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I've had an idea I've played with, but it seems to be missing something at the end.  I'd love your thoughts or those from your readers.

I call it "Invisible Braille" and it uses a stack and preferably a marked deck (like you, I prefer DMC Elites).  It comes after doing a trick, preferably a divination of some sort.  I'd ask if they know how I do that and I explain using marked cards.  But, I tell them, the markings are not what they think.  I have them choose a card and I hand it to them (me handing it is important).  I then reveal the card to them.  I ask them to feel around near the corner and ask if they feel that.  They usually get confused and I explain I can tell the card just by feeling.

To prove it is not the back of the card, I then have them cut cards and hold the packet cut to their chest w/o looking.  I peek at the card below (using the markings) and know what card they have.  Without either of us looking I have them pull it off their chest enough for me to touch the face corner and reveal their card.  Then I have them feel for the markings again.  I may proceed to do it once or twice more, depending on the audience.—DP 

I see two issues here.

First, the trick doesn’t really build (probably what you’re saying when you say it’s “missing something at the end.”)

Second, it verges too much on believability, in my opinion. If you look at most playing cards (including the DMCs) there is a finish on them that looks like tiny bumps. If you told me there was someone who could “read” those tiny bumps, I’d think, “Nah…, that can’t be true. Well shit… maybe?” I prefer to push them over into “definitely not true,” and then still do it.

If I was going to do this trick, here’s how I’d do it. I’d start it the way you do where I perform a trick and then “expose” the invisible braille markings. Then I’d give a couple of examples of how I can read the cards with my fingertips. Essentially the same as you’ve written it up.

“It’s funny… let me show you something,” I’d say as I get on my phone. I’d tell them these decks have made their way into some gambling circles and it’s become a huge issue because people are using them to cheat. “My friend, Allan, is super paranoid about cheating and doesn’t have the sensitivity to know if the cards are marked in this way. So this is how he made us play cards the last time we got together.” And I’d turn my phone to them and show them a picture of me and a few friends around a table, playing cards. All of us with big smiles on our faces and oven mitts on our hands.

Then I’d explain that I took that as a challenge to try and increase my sensitivity to the subtle braille markings. And I’d have them shuffle the deck while I got some oven mitts from the kitchen. I’d return wearing the mitts and have them hand me the cards under the table. I’d feel the first card, name it, but get it slightly wrong. The second time I tried it, I’d name three cards I thought it might be, and I’d eventually make a guess at which of those three I thought it was. (“Hmmm… it’s either the 4, 5, or 6 of Diamonds. I think the 6?” I’d get it right, but not with much confidence.

The way I could do it with a shuffled deck is that these two cards would be in one of the oven mitts. And I’d just remove the cards when I put my hands under the table and then place them on top of the deck when they handed me the deck.

A month later I’d say, “Oh, I’ve been wanting to show you my progress with this.” I’d give them the deck to shuffle and I’d put on the oven mitts. Take the deck from them under the table, then start naming cards and pulling them out one at a time. Eventually whizzing through, naming a card every second or so.

The method is that I just stuff their shuffled deck into one of the oven mitts under the table and remove my stacked deck from the other mitt.

Then, if you wanted to take it further you could say, “It takes a few hundred hours to get to that proficiency. But many people can pick up on the basics really quickly.” Then spend a couple of minutes having them feel the difference between red and black cards. “You probably won’t feel it physically. But your subconscious will learn the subtle differences.”

After a while, I’d hand them 20 cards or so and see if they can deal them into reds and blacks. Of course, using a partial deck handling of Out of This World, I could reveal that they did.

Now, this is probably not a trick I’d do in reality. But I wanted to dive into it as an example of some of the subjects I’ve written about in the past (Reps, breaking up a trick over time, establishing a process before launching into a spectator as magician plot, etc.)

I’ve made a post in the past that I think magic is the manipulation of belief. It’s not about being convinced something happened when it didn’t. It’s not about being fooled. It’s about a state of mind where you’re wavering between what is real, what feels real, and what could be real. That’s what the progression I’ve laid out here is trying to capitalize on.

They see a trick. You “explain” the trick in a way that is maybe plausible. You demonstrate this technique so it’s feeling more possible. You show the picture, which seems to lend credence to the idea that maybe it is real. But then you demonstrate it in a way that couldn’t possibly be real. But if you’re faking it… why didn’t you just get the cards dead-on right? Then a month later you demonstrate it in a way that must be fake. But then you follow it up with a demonstration where they themselves accomplish a rudimentary version of what they had just decided was fake. This is how you manipulate and “sculpt” with a person’s sense of belief.

If you say, “I can read these cards with my fingertips,” that’s a fine premise, but not overly memorable.

Seeing that picture of a group of guys playing cards with oven mitts on, watching you fumble around with the deck with mitts on yourself, having the trick reintroduced a month later, and finally achieving the color separation themselves—those elements are what’s going to make the trick stick with people.