The Magician's "Response to Tragedy" Library

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After the attacks in Belgium last week, I began thinking about Shin Lim and the video he made after the Paris attacks last year.

What better way to pay your respects to the victims of a tragedy than to make it about yourself? 

Well, now you can do it much faster and easier with a new project I've started called, The Magician's "Response to Tragedy" Library. I've created a library of 8000 videos (and growing) that allow you to post a response to almost any tragedy that occurs within moments of it occurring. Earthquake in Dubai? We've got that. Plague of frogs in Kansas? We've got that too.

How does it work? You just subscribe to the service and anxiously await something terrible to happen. When a suicide bomber takes out a pie-eating contest (for example), I will take our response video to that tragedy, add your contact info at the beginning and end, then upload it to youtube and facebook.

All you have to do is sit back and collect the likes.

See the sample clips below for three different potential tragedies.

Eggstreme

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That's an Easter pun.

I was just laying in bed and started laughing because I thought of something that I hadn't for about 10 years. And that was the point in time when, for about 18 months, there was this notion that cardistry/card flourishing was something of a bad boys activity, and that maybe you had to be a little dangerous to be involved with it. There were a bunch of competing groups with these corny names and they would make these videos that were meant to mysterious and badass which is ridiculous when 98% of their time is spent picking cards up off their bedroom floor.

These days I feel like people are more content just enjoying cardistry for what it is: a study of movement and dexterity that has more in common with juggling and dance than it does snorting cocaine or operating a fight club. It's certainly not the dark, enigmatic activity indulged in by brooding, dangerous practitioners that they once tried to portray. It's hard to brood when you're waiting for your mom to pick you up from the mall.

Thinking about this topic reminded me of this post from the old site....

Monday, June 06, 2005

Magik Sircull Jerx 

The whole XCM/Superhandz/Handlordz sub-culture is pretty fun and fascinating. I have no desire to do any flourishes but I enjoy watching them and appreciate the effort that goes into perfecting some of the more incredible moves.

But anyone who purposely misspells extreme as Xtreme or pluralizes things with a Z is pretty much automatically lame and a complete fucking poser. This shit was cool for about two weeks six years ago. You know who does this now? 60-year-old ad-executives hoping to target a young demographic. Don't be a tool. Drop the Zs and the Xs. In fact, drop the whole word "extreme," it's idiotic and tired. 

In general it's best to avoid using any positive adjectives about yourself. Let other people apply the adjectives. You don't say, "My card manipulation is XTREME," just like you don't say, "I'm so generous," just like you don't say, "I'm so crazy!"

““You really don’t remember me, do you?” she said. “it’s me, crazy Trudy who used to sit beside you in Mr. Pope’s senior English class. Remember me? I was the crazy one. I was the one who wrote ‘Don’t follow me – I’m lost too’ on the back of her graduation gown. It’s me, crazy Trudy.”

Suddenly I remembered her perfectly. Even at eighteen she struck me as hopeless.

”So, Trudy,” I said. “What’s going on?”

”Oh, you know me. I’m just as crazy as ever. No, I take that back – I’m probably crazier if you can believe that!”

I thought for a moment before saying, “Oh.” Because that’s really something I can’t stand – when people refer to themselves as crazy. The truly crazy are labeled so on the grounds that they see nothing wrong with their behavior. They forge ahead, lighting fires in public buildings and defecating in frying pans without the slightest notion that they are out of step with the rest of society. That, to me, is crazy. Calling yourself crazy is not crazy, only obnoxious.”
— David Sedaris - Barrel Fever

Yes, and calling yourself Xtreme doesn't make you Xtreme or even extreme, it just makes appear desperate.

And it creates some strange marketing decisions.

Look at this DVD called "Xtreme Beginnerz."

What?

How can you be an xtreme beginner? 

Person 1: Damn man, I'm so Xtreme, I can't even fan a deck of cards.

Person 2: Fuck you, dude! I'm way more Xtreme a beginner than you. I can barely hold on to a deck of cards. If I have to shuffle it requires so much concentration that I shit my pants. I shit my pants to the XTREME!!!

I think that's great. They were going for something cool and ended up with something halfway between lame and completely adorable.

I can't wait for their next DVD: Xtremely Lonely Virginz Flip A Pen Around Or Some Shit Like That.

Gardyloo #8: Help Wanted Edition

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I just got back from Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. It's too long, and the characters couldn't be more dull, but it's no dumber than you'd expect it to be. If you walk out of film called Batman vs. Superman and are confused why it wasn't a great film, that's on you. Anything with "vs." in the title is an excuse to eat popcorn and get away from your kids.

Twelve stars!

Help Wanted #1 - Gotham

If you live in the NYC area and you are willing to perform a simple trick for three different people one-on-one over the course of the next week or so, send me an email. I have a concept I want to test but I'd like to have people other than myself test it out. When I do anything it's like, "Oh, yeah, sure, people loved it. That's just because you're hyper charming and likable." Ok, guilty. So I'm looking for two or three other people to try something out for me.

To do the trick you'll need some items that you probably don't have access to, so you'll have to pick them up from a drop-off spot in midtown and then I'll email you further instructions.

I realize this makes it sound like you're an unwitting participant in a drug deal, but it's really just a dumb magic idea I want to test. I promise. Would I really spend a year writing a magic blog just to identify some strangers to mule heroin for me? That seems unlikely. I mean, if that was my plan all along then I'd probably ask you to buy this set of graduated butt plugs to let me know what kind of trunk-space you're dealing with, if --for example-- I wanted you to keister a couple of latex balloons filled with china white. But that's not what I'm asking of course. This blog is NOT a cover for my drug dealing operation. The people who bought my book are not expecting a hollowed out hardcover overflowing with Dragon Rock, my potent mix of heroin and crack. I mean... one's potent mix. That's like a totally absurd suggestion.

Annnyyyywhooooooo... so if you're in the NYC area and want to try a simple coin trick and report back your results, let me know.

[EDIT: Thanks to those who've emailed. I have a couple people lined up now. If one of them falls through I'll let you know.]

Dear Shawn,

You've, got to work on the humble part of the humble-brag. Otherwise it comes off as just bragging, and the only person who would brag about a standing ovation is someone who doesn't really think they're deserving of it. Next time, try one of these:

"Sorry if the show runs late, I forgot to account for the standing ovations when I was timing it out. #idiot."

"When my wife complimented me on my three standing O's. I said, 'No, honey, you were laying down and there were half a dozen of them.' Just realized she was talking about the reception to my show. #ImADummy #cunnilingus."

"I'm such a louse. Why didn't I lift up those wheelchair bound spectators during my standing ovations so they could take part in the pleasure of praising me? #inclusion #myapologies."

Help Wanted #2 - Harkey

Do you regularly perform any effects from David Harkey's book, Simply Harkey? If so, get in touch with me if you're willing to record yourself performing, or if you have something significant to add to any of the effects. It's for a series of posts I want to do in the future.

You may think I have an issue with mentalists, but I've seen plenty of great mentalism shows and love the art. Stage hypnotists, on the other hand, all suck turds. At least all the ones I've ever seen. It would be one thing if there was an ounce of validity to the whole enterprise and that required the process to be hacky and boring. But it's 100% phony and they still can't make it interesting? That's sad.

Speaking of sad, it's got be really sad when you fancy yourself a master of persuasion and suggestion and you (allegedly) can't convince a prostitute to let you film the two of you fucking. Let's be honest, the whole reason you got into hypnosis is because you thought -- for once -- you would be able to get people to do what you told them to. You thought it would be chick after chick just being like, 'Yes, master, you can film us fucking. Anything you wish, master." And instead you learn the only thing your "skill" is good for is getting community college students to pretend to play invisible orchestral instruments. And you're like, "This is the power I dreamt of wielding?" And so you're meeting up with 'tutes to do the things that goddamn wife of yours won't and you're not even persuasive enough to get one to be filmed willingly so you have to do it without her consent like a creep. That's depressing. Although not too much more depressing than the average hypnosis show.

Help Wanted #3 - Cosmetropolis (London Swings)

I'm thinking about spending the second half of 2016 in London. Does Jerx: London have any thoughts on what area I should plan on staying in and how much I should plan on spending for long-term accommodations? I'm fairly low-maintenance, I just require something that's not a shit-hole. Also, can I just move there for 6 months? Or do I need to have a job or something. I mean, I do have a job (making Dragon Rock), but do I need one that specifically brings me to London? If so, get in touch if you'd like to hire me. Usually I work in the creative fields, but I'll do chimney sweeping, or nannying, or whatever it is you've got out there. Just make me an offer.

Cosmetropolis (London Swings)
The Guild League

To Make the Vanish More Striking

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This is a small thing. But, like the Elmsley Count issue in this post, it bothers me when I see it and I think it's an easy fix.

I find a lot of people perform David Williamson's Striking Vanish so it looks like this.

Tap once. Tap twice. And it vanishes on the third.

That's fine and all, but I think it's a mistake to do the two little practice taps before the actual vanish. I'm guessing the reason people do it is because it helps them get in the rhythm they feel they need for a kinetic vanish such as this. But the problem with it is, no matter how skilled you are, you have to do something different on the third tap or the coin would remain where it is, as it did in the first two. And the fact you have to move your hands differently than you did in the preceding taps draws attention to the fact that you're breaking the pattern you've established (the pattern you've unnecessarily established). 

I almost can't even intentionally do it as bad as many people do. Watch this dude try and do it. And he thinks he's good enough to teach it.

One tap. Two taps. FISHYMOVE! vanish.

To me it looks more like what you're actually doing than what you're pretending to be doing (which is almost never a good thing in magic).

I do think it's a good idea to establish the idea that the coin is going to vanish when you tap it, but instead of doing two practice taps on the coin and then a different looking tap to vanish it, I tap somewhere else. "The coin will vanish when I tap it," I might say, tapping the air in front of me. Then I do the striking vanish. Because I haven't established a pattern/rhythm of tapping the coin, there's no pattern or rhythm to be broken.

If the GIFs aren't clear, here's the raw video with one version following the other.

Gardyloo #7

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Speaking of looping around like a möbius strip, this is a pretty clever way to start a blog post.

So, I think I've settled on a title for the book. It's going to be The Jerx Vol. 1. I just like the implied threat in that title. 

Speaking of the book, I was just doing the rewrite and update for the trick, The Passion of Donny Ackerman, where you supposedly stop time in order to read the contents of a billet, make a sandwich, and check out your spectator's rack. I think a new release that could be added to that effect is Thought Jump by Patrick Redford. In this instance I would remove the visual aspect of that effect. So you place a billet -- that has a clearly marked top and bottom side-- top-side up under an opaque cup and the spectator puts her hand on top. You go through the effect, the spectator feels a tingle on her hand and when she lifts the cup the billet is now turned over. The implication being that you stopped time, lifted the cup, read the billet, and put it back down the other side up.

I probably won't add this to the effect myself, because I'm pretty happy with it as it stands now. But I do think it's worthwhile to consider what visual effects might also be good by removing the visual element. In other words, just show them where things start and where things end up. Remove the visual step and let their imagination fill in the gap. I'm not saying it's always better that way, but sometimes it is. This is how I almost always do a haunted deck effect (as described here) and I think it gets better reactions. Well... maybe not better, but different. I think it's more mysterious. If I showed you a deck of cards I could set on the table and it would unfold itself and flip and flop its way into the shape of a card castle, that would be a pretty great trick to see.

But it would also be great to not see. If it's the two of us alone in a room and we set the deck of cards on the table and then turned our backs to it and then turned back a minute later and there was a card castle there, that might even feel more magical. 

I'm not saying "visual" effects aren't good. In most cases they're preferable. But with some effects I think it's madness not to at least consider leaving the visuals to the spectator's imagination.

Speaking of madness, it's March Madness here in the U.S., the 68 team college basketball tournament. If you'd like to predict the winner for one of the games, I have a pretty good option. Joe Mckay alerted me to a method for predicting the winner of the Super Bowl (but it can be used for any sporting event). It's a Richard Himber effect that's in Karl Fulves' Big Book of Magic Tricks. Go here and enter "super bowl" in the search field on the left then click the preview with the heading that says "How to Predict the Super Bowl." 

It's a clever method. Unfortunately, if you've ever done something like this where you predict a binary sort of thing like the winner of a game, you'll find that people are somewhat underwhelmed. I mean, a random guess will be right 50% of the time and an educated guess should be right considerably more often. So, big deal, right? I mean, it would almost be more fun to show them the method than take credit for guessing one out of two. But there are two ways you can make this much more impressive.

Method 1: If you're at a gathering with a bunch of people you can bet everyone in the place that you've predicted the game and give them 10 to 1 odds. So if they bet $20 they could win $200 in return. And you make bets with everyone there. At certain parties or bars/pubs, this type of thing would go over extremely well. And when it comes to the revelation and you have a chance of making like $500 or losing $5000, that will be an exciting, tense, satisfying moment, even though it is still only a 1 in 2 shot.

Method 2: On the back of your prediction you're going to set up the same dual prediction. So it looks like this.

When the event is over you will reveal your prediction of the winner. After you do you will now echo what the spectator is thinking. "Of course," you say, "that might not be the most impressive thing in the world. It's a 1 in 2 guess. That's why I predicted the score too." And you turn the card around to show the score which you've nail-written in on both sides of the dash as you discuss the lackluster-ness of just predicting the winner. Yes, you lose the ability of just handing the prediction to someone to remove, but you get a much more impressive effect that is methodologically and narratively sound. You can immediately pull out a correct prediction (which takes the heat off the nail-writing moment, because they don't know more is to come) and follow it up with an even stronger correct prediction. The second prediction seems to anticipate their potential underwhelm with the first, and because it's all filled in except the score you can complete the two-sided prediction with minimal monkeying around.

Speaking of monkeying around, this Vine video was pretty popular last week. 

R2Tdq58.gif

While his* reaction is great, it's his initial look that I find the funniest. We've probably all tried to show people a trick and received this kind of reception as we were getting into it.

I think sometimes non-professional (and probably professionals too) get unnerved by skeptical spectators, but I don't mind a skeptical audience. Many times they are a shitty backpalm away from having a monkey-style freakout. As long as they're bringing some kind of energy, good or bad, to the experience, you can usually get a strong reaction from them. It's the indifferent people that are truly a bummer to perform for, and I genuinely avoid them altogether.

* I don't know why I said "his" reaction. I have no clue if this monkey is male or not.

Speaking of "male or not," is the US mail the best way to send stuff internationally or not? If you have experience shipping stuff internationally from the US let me know any tips you might have. I was pricing shipping options for my book and it was like, "Oh, if you want to do priority mail for a book of this size to Australia it will be $70." I suppose 1st class international is a more reasonable option, but it can take up to a few weeks. I just want to know if there's some option I haven't considered. I don't want a bunch of angry international readers who had to wait because their book was on the slow boat and then they take it out on me -- find me at a convention and beat the shit out of me, twist my body and shove my head up my ass until I'm looped around like a möbius strip.

Friends of the Jerx: Jean-Thomas Sexton

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["Friends of The Jerx" is where I highlight people who have contributed to this site, the projects they're involved in, or the subjects they're interested in.]

Friend of the site, Jean-Thomas Sexton, has just released the first volume in what he foolishly thinks will be a monthly online video project called Snake Magic Monthly. I know what you're thinking, "Sweet Christ, do we really need another project devoted to magic you can do with your pet snake? I've read Addercadabra. I've read Aspercadabra. I've read Abradacobra. I've got more versions of Three Card Monte Python than I can shake my ding-dong at. I'll pass." Don't worry, friends, this is not another tired project devoted to "snake magic," but something much more exciting: magic with playing cards! I've been saying since forever that people should do magic with these things. Am I spelling that right? Playing cards? Is it cards or cerds? (I've only heard it spoken.) Either way, it's clear from this first issue that Jean-Thomas is a very capable card (cerd) magician.

For $6.66 you get an 11-minute, no frills video. (Keep that in mind if frills are your thing.) It's shot in the type of environment where I imagine most magicians spend their time: an empty room with bare white walls, industrial carpeting on the floor, and the only adornment is a half-scale model of R2-D2. I've seen snuff films set in less depressing locations.

In those 11 minutes, Jean-Thomas teaches versions of three classic card effects tied together into a chilled-scrotum-tight set. In fact, that's what I liked most about this download, the thinking that went into the routining of these effects together. Everything is bound together so the first and second effect falsely reinforce conditions for the final effect. And that final effect, Pavlov's Cat, is my favorite one. It's what everyone has been begging for, another ace assembly, but the vanish of the aces is so convincing (and so well set up during the previous effects) that it fooled me pretty good when I watched it.

I'm a big supporter of anyone trying anything new or different in the current magic landscape. I liked it when Penguin started doing weekly online-lectures, I liked the idea behind the Real Secrets project, and I love this site called The Jerx which is redefining magic. So I would encourage you to check out the first issue of Snake Magic Monthly if you have the dough to spend, especially if you're into card magic (and you do need a decent foundation in card magic to understand the download). You may find some material, some moves, or a new voice in magic that you enjoy and you'll know to hop onto future issues. Worst case scenario is that it's not for you and you're out 6 bucks. What can you get for 6 bucks these days? A blow job? Wait...really? Where do you live?