National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. You probably knew that. It’s the only thing that’s been in the news recently.

I have a resource for you. It’s a poem. I mean, in the sense that anything is a poem.

This post is a poem.

Especially if
I take the time
to break it up
and write it
like this
so gentle, and pure
as the orchid bud in June

Huh? What the fuck does that mean?

Hey, it’s poetry, baby! It don’t mean shit. In fact, you’re still in the poem right now. This part, where I’m telling you you’re in the poem is still part of the poem. So is the rest of this.

Here is a poem you might get some use from. It’s called A Jar of Balloons or the Uncooked Rice by Matthew Yeager. I’m not going to copy and paste it here as you will understand why when you see it. It’s just a series of questions. Hundreds, at least.

It starts off like…

And then it goes on and on and on.

What does this have to do with magic?

First off, it’s valuable simply as a resource of questions and concepts that may be interesting for people to talk about. In turn you can build on those ideas to suggest different avenues to explore with people presentationally.

Or you can just use the poem as I have done as something of an Unknown Personal generator.

The nice thing about it is, this is a poem that exists. It’s a thing in the real world. You can say, “There’s this poem I found recently, and I think it’s pretty interesting. And I want to try something with it and you in particular. I’m not sure I could do it with someone else.” And it is a real poem, from a real poet, with a real history. It’s not some made up magic-y thing.

Since we’re still quarantining at this moment in time, I had my friend go to the poem and scroll down and stop and read the first question she saw.

Was your Christmas tree (if you had one as a child) fake or real?

Answer: Real

We did this four more times. Her scrolling around and stopping wherever she wanted and reading the first question that came up. I had her make note of the answers on a piece of a paper as she went.

Who is your wealthiest relative?

Answer: Grandpa William

Do you own, currently, and furniture you’ve found on the street?

Answer: No

How many people from high school do you keep in touch with?

Answer: 6

Do you ever mess with the button inside the fridge that makes the light go off and on, just press it flat a few times?

Answer: Yes

Obviously each question brought out some level of discussion as well.

At the end she had a list:

• Real

• Grandpa William

• No

• 6

• Yes

“Now, look, I probably could have gone and researched any one of the individual questions in that poem to see what your answer would be. But I couldn’t have researched all of them. And even if I could, I couldn’t have known you would randomly stop on these five questions, in this order, out of the thousand questions in the poem. ‘Real, Grandpa William, No, 6, Yes’ is like a code, completely unique to you. Like your DNA. It’s something neither of us could have predicted before all of this. You know me. You know I’m not psychic. I don’t even believe in psychics. And that’s why this is so crazy to me….”

I drew her attention back to the little clear box I’d pointed out when we first started and I revealed what was inside.

As you can probably imagine, this was a real mindfuck. She told me she immediately went back and rewatched the recording of our interaction because she was certain I must have distracted her at some point to put the piece of paper in the little box. Of course she found nothing of the sort. That’s the reason I had her record the process—to eliminate that Easy Answer.

I had been somewhat concerned she would just get 5 yes/no questions. My plan was either to tell her to go to a non yes/no question for the fifth one, or just add a parenthetical to one of her answers. For example if she had the question, “Were you allowed to watch R-rated movies as a child?” And she said yes and that her dad let her watch Friday the 13th and other horror movies. I would have written: Yes (Friday the 13th). Or something along those lines.

As I said, I think the poem has value as just a general resource as well. Things to talk about, ideas to explore, things to predict. And it doesn’t need to be just a video chat trick like described above.

That’s it. End of poem.

Nope… now it’s over for real.

The end.

That was part of it too.

In the May Newsletter

Sometimes, if I find myself in the company of someone who I will never meet again, I will just flat out lie to them about myself the whole time I’m talking to them. I figure, why not give them a good story to take with them?

So I’ll tell them stuff like, “Yeah, I was the baby in Three Men and a Baby.”

Or, “What do I do for a living? I’m in Slipknot.”

(This guy.)

Or, “I played the oboe on the Final Jeopardy theme.”

In the May Newsletter (coming tomorrow) I’ll be discussing a subset of tricks I’ve been aggregating for similar situations that I call One Night Stand effects. I’ll give you my rationale for why I perform these tricks the way I do (which is sort of the inverse to the way I perform for people I’ll see again), I’ll review an effect I use in this situation and give you my scripting for it.

In addition there will be a long-ish review of Marc Kerstein’s new app and the way I will be using or have used the four effects that come with that.

Supporters should find it in their email boxes between Thursday evening or Friday morning at the latest.

The New Normal?

Do you feel like this is the new normal? I feel like we should start optimizing all our magic for webcams/social media. I don’t see us going back to regular performing, even once this is all over. —SK

No, this isn’t the new normal.

At least not for the social magician. (I can’t speak for cruise ship magicians, restaurant magicians, trade show magicians, etc.)

For the amateur magician, there will be opportunities to perform in person in the not too distant future. There will be travel and parties and dates and gatherings and holidays and trips to coffee shops and bars. If anything, this situation is reminding people how much they appreciate interacting with people in the real world.

Performing over skype/facetime or whatever should go back to being a novelty. If it was just as strong as performing in person, I’d be all for it. But it’s nowhere near as strong.

My estimates of the mathematics of the impact of a trick are something like this:

Let’s say someone’s reaction to a trick you post on instagram is x.

Doing that same trick over a webcam “live” and one-on-one for someone will easily get a reaction of 5x or so.

Doing that same trick in person will usually get at least a reaction of 10x. But it could be much more than that. It could be 100x or 1000x, because some tricks that would be almost impact-less if presented generically on video, can be very powerful in person.

So… is this the new normal? Let’s hope not. Or else we’ll be confined to a much less impactful means of sharing magic.

The Foreground Prediction

Friend-of-the-site, Seth Raphael, posted a cool video chat prediction effect on his patreon account. (It’s free to watch.) And in that same video he also previews something he’s working on with other friend-of-the-site, Marc Kerstein. This site has some fucking smart friends.

Check out the video here to familiarize yourself with it, then I’ll give you my thoughts.

…

You’re back? Just a minute.

Sorry, I was eating a turkey leg.

Okay. Here’s what I would do. It would be the same set-up as Seth has in the video but with two additional things. First I’d have a piece of double-stick tape on the front of the prediction. And I’d also have a Sharpie on me.

I’d say,

“Here is my prediction. It will never leave your sight. Now, if you were here in person, I would have you put your finger on it, so you’d know I don’t switch it or do anything funny with it. But since we can’t do that, we’ll put a sort-of virtual finger on it.” I’d ask them for a two digit number or a simple shape or something and I’d draw that on the back of the prediction card. That’s their virtual “finger on the back of the card.”

Then I would go through with the effect as Seth lays it out.

This fully justifies bringing the back of the card up to the camera. “As you can see, this is the prediction that was in view the whole time with your crescent moon shape on the back. And on the front… the card you named, the two of clubs.” The mark justifies the handling and the presentation justifies the mark. There are no loose ends here.

And the double-sided tape allows you to toss it in the air and handle it very freely.

If your intention is to predict a card over a webcam, this is pretty damn good.

You could also probably do it with a business card and have any word or number predicted.

Everyone thank Seth for being a nice boy and sharing his idea with the class.

Supernatural Podcast

I really enjoyed the Reply All episode you recommended in your March 8th post. Do you have any other podcast recommendations? —ST

Sure. I’ll drop a podcast recommendation in here from time to time.

First, let me say that I know there are a lot of good magic podcasts. I just don’t happen to listen to any of them. I’m sure I would if I wasn’t spending so much time immersed in magic already, but when I’m driving or walking or in some other podcast-listening scenario, I’m usually trying to take a break from the magic stuff.

A podcast I’ve been enjoying recently is Supernatural with Ashley Flowers.

Each episode takes a look at a different “supernatural” incident. It does a good job of riding the line of being creepy but not overly credulous in regards to the subject they’re covering. The most recent episode, The Eilean Mor Lighthouse Keepers, struck me as particularly eerie. It’s a story I had never heard before. It’s about these three lighthouse keepers who disappeared. At one point in the episode, they read the journal of one of the keepers in the days leading up to the disappearance and it was very subtly unsettling. (They do note that the journal may be a hoax, but the incident is real.)

The podcast just started in February. All the episodes have been good so far.

The Juxe: Micro-Genres - Good Songs Inspired by Scooby Doo

Ghost Projection Machine by Jon O’Brien

Meddling Kids by The Shake Ups

I Feel Like a Proud Papa!

I am legitimately shaking with how thrilled I am about this post.

Look, I’ve had this site for years. It’s led to me having the opportunity to interact with a lot of people I admire in magic. I’ve written a number of books that many consider to be landmark volumes in the history of this art form. I’ve had a lot of success in magic and a lot of things to be excited about. But they all pale in comparison to what I get to announce today.

The title of this post says that I feel like a proud father. But honestly, it’s something more than that. Any asshole can make a baby. I mean, think of your dad; he’s nothing special. But what I’ve done (with the help of a partner that I think will surprise you a little) is create something that is going to revolutionize magic. It goes beyond that even. This may seem too ambitious… but I think maybe I might have had a hand in creating something that is going to help heal our broken planet.

That’s right. Me and the boys at Ellusionist have put the Mnemonica card stack on a watch.

Ellusionist, the company that is best known for making wristbands and fidget dildos, reached out to me a couple of months ago and asked if there was maybe something we could collaborate on. I was psyched because—while I occasionally tease Ellusionist—I really thought we could work together and make something pretty cool.

So I sent them this video of my Mnemomica Stack Watch prototype that I’ve been working on for a few years.

And from there we were off to the races! It’s been a real whirlwind getting this product to market. The guys at E are totally great to work with. I want to thank them for being such amazing partners.

I figured there might be some questions about our new baby, so I’ve put together this FAQ.

FAQ

What the fuck?

Thanks! We’ve been getting that reaction a lot. People’s jaws drop (from surprise) and then they shake their head (because they’re astonished by how clever this thing is) and then they say, “That’s retarded” (street slang for “really great.”)

Isn’t that crib completely unreadable from more than 4 inches?

Precisely! Remember… if you can read a crib, so can your audience. At Ellusionist, we always question the status quo. Everyone: “Cards need to be white and nice and not badass.” BOOM - We give you the Black Tiger deck. Everyone: “ESP cards shouldn’t be see-thru.” BOOM - We give you the ESP cards in the How To Read Minds kit. Everyone: “No, no. We shouldn’t do ninja.” Boom -

So when someone in our meeting room said, “Of course the crib will have to be legible.” It was no surprise when Brad Christian turned his swivel-chair to face us, pulled his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose, stroked the baby ocelot in his lap, and said, “Yeah… but what if it wasn’t?”

That’s boldness. That’s creativity. That’s leadership. I still get chills thinking about it.

How am I supposed to justify looking at my watch so much?

Think about it… When you show people your card magic, what are they doing throughout the effect? That’s right! Looking at their watch! You’ll fit right in with all of your spectators.

How do I go about finding the right card on the watch bezel in order to know the stack number?

What?

The cards on the bezel. They’re in an order I don’t know. So if someone says the Jack of Clubs, I’m just supposed to stare at my watch, scanning my eyes around until I find it?

Oh, of course not. That’s would be ridiculous. We recommend you memorize the order of the cards on the watch so you can find them quickly.

Why would you rip-off the exact look of one of the most famous expensive watches in the world?

The whole purpose of a fake Rolex is to draw attention to itself. Wouldn’t you want to avoid that, lest they see the 104 letters and numbers around the bezel and the big “Stack” logo on the face (which, when googled, leads directly to the Ellusionist website)?

See, when you put it that way it sounds really poorly thought out. But I assure you, every design choice we made is absolutely no dumber than the idea of putting the stack on a watch in the first place.

I have a question about the ACAAN method mentioned in the ad:

HOW IT WORKS - EASY, NO MEMORY ACAAN

Twist & track every card in every position of the deck. If the spectator names position 16 and the 5 of clubs, you just twist the dial to that position. Now it shows that you need to cut the 8 of hearts to the face of the deck to ensure the ACAAN is bang on.  

So let me get this straight. You would have them name a card. Then you would search around your watch to find that particular card. And you’d have them name a number. Then you’d carefully twist the bezel around and adjust it to the point where the named card is on the minute that corresponds with the number. Then you’d look at the top of the watch to see a different card. Then you’d spread through the deck to find that card. Cut it to the face. And then, finally, you’d be in a position where you could count to their card at their chosen number?

It’s just that easy!

---

Okay guys, I have to run now. We’re getting together to work out some other products in the Stack watch family. We have an Aronson stack version on the way. And we also have another version coming out that will hopefully give you a better grasp on new deck order, for those of you confused by that. Exciting times ahead!