Let's Dish: Did Bish the Magish Vanish?

I received an email the other day that read:

In your references to the MCJ blog, there has been absolutely no mention of Glenn Bishop (by the way, did you know that his father was the famous “Bish the Magish”?). 

What do you know of him, his whereabouts, and activities these days? 

2 memories of the Bish. The time he posted a video of himself bringing the 4 Aces to the top of the deck with a horrible and obvious multiple shift and then stacking them for a poker deal in only EIGHT shuffles. When attacked for how stupid it was, he tried to claim he had to spot each Ace, cull it, and shuffle it into position. As if we all forgot about the multiple shift. 

And one of your great lines/observations (that I’m going to mangle in my paraphrase). In reference to his work doing Hypnotism shows for schools, you said something to effect of: Yeah hypnotism shows for High School kids are really tough to pull off. “Timmy, stop clucking like a chicken and sit down! The hypnotism show is about to start.” 

On my old site, Glenn Bishop was a big source of fun for about a month or so. I don't really remember it all that well. I just remember he liked to speak on the Cafe and in other places with great authority and spoke highly of his own wisdom and skill. But he wrote with all the finesse of a semi-illiterate at-risk-youth forced to write a personal essay about his hobbies before he'd be let out of detention: "I like to play the basketbal with Tony and Kris. It am a game I like. I like to bowns the ball and dunk with a big jumpy. B-ball is for fun and so I am to." And he would post videos that could best be described as unwatchable.

But his best quality was that he wanted to engage. He didn't back down. He had zero self-awareness that our back and forth was completely one-sided. He was like a guy setting baseballs on a tee for me and saying, "I'm playing baseball!"

My favorite thing I ever read (and I don't just mean about The Magic Circle Jerk, I mean of everything I ever read in my life, like I put this ahead of To Kill a Mockingbird) was a blog post he wrote entitled: A Magic Terrorist or A Sick Little Boy. [I ask now as I asked at the time, why can't I be both?]

A Magic Terrorist or A Sick Little Boy? 

Who is the sickest most twisted little boy in magic. Andy the little boy known as the magic circle jerk. 

Why is he the sickest most twisted little boy in magic?

Because he started a blog that was started for the only reason of knocking, insulting and terrorizing magicians in magic.

If you think that is funny think about that for a moment. The fact is this sick little coward started a blog just to run down magicians he doesn't like. 

Plus he hides like a little coward behind his little screen name Andy.

Many young people think that this guy is funny at his low attempts at humor - but insult train wreck humor is only funny when they are not the person that is being insulted. 

Plus the fact that this blog was started for the reason (and only reason) to attack people in magic. And to hide and terrorize people in magic. Like a little kid that throws water balloons from a balcony and then runs and hides. 

Second - this little kid is a sick - sick idiot!

Why?

I feel that people that pick on people with disabilities are the sickest and the lowest form of sub humans that exist on the world.

He really must have a very low self image of himself to do that plus start his little "revenge" and "terrorist" blog and do it for so long. 

I suppose that little people that can't make it in magic the right way have to do something!

But Andy the circle jerk isn't funny - there is nothing funny about a "magic terrorist!"

Oh, my god, I love that so much. "Second - this little kid is a sick - sick idiot!" I wish we were all friends in real life and we could hang around my apartment and whenever one of us got on the other's nerves for farting too much or pulling our scrotum out of our zipper and asking if anyone wanted any gum, we could look at each other and say exasperatedly, "This little kid is a sick - sick idiot!"

Another one of my favorite things Glenn did was when he lectured everyone on how to write press releases. He said to make sure you end them by writing the word "Forty." He said, "That is the way that newspaper people tell the editor that that is the end of the story…." But it's not, of course. Tradition has it that press releases often end with -30-, but you don't even really need that in the present day. I do dearly hope that Glenn ended some press releases with "Forty." Someone mangling something they unnecessarily did to look learned or professional is hilarious to me. It would be like if there was a conversation over a CB radio and the guy on the other end was like, "I'm heading over the bridge," and then Glenn nods at you knowingly and pics up the handset, and you're expecting him to say "10-4" but instead he says, "8-73, good buddy." 

After that incident, people were constantly ending their emails to me by writing "Forty."

At one point I was posting about Glenn every other day and he was coming back at me on his blog and it was just delightful. And then one day I got done reading one of his posts and I was getting ready to dissect it with my reply, and a question arose in my mind, long after it should have... "Oh, wait... is this guy retarded?" And I don't mean that in the clinical way where someone is developmentally slow, but usually sweet and guileless. Because he clearly wasn't that. But i just mean like... well... if you had said to me, "You know, he went in for a brain transplant and the doctor completely forgot to bring the brain and so they put in a baked potato instead." I wouldn't have questioned you. I would have been like, "Oooooohhhh... alright, okay, now I understand." And I thought, "Should I really be arguing with a baked-potato brain?" So at that point I removed most of my posts about him and they are now completely lost in the aether. I don't know if that was the right way to handle it. But that's what I did.

But where is Glenn now? I haven't really seen him lecturing people on the forums. But I'm not on the forums much myself. So I went to his website. It's an absolute masterpiece of web design. 

He really plays up being called "Mr. Hypnotist." Glenn, I'm not quite sure that's the compliment you think it is. When people are too disinterested to even learn your name, that's generally not a great sign. Nobody beams with pride when they hear, "Hey, Mr. Janitor, go mop up those feces." So when you hear, "Mr. Hypnotist, did you order buffalo wings?" or "Mr. Hypnotist, you're blocking the hallway," I'm not sure you should be promoting that. Would you put this on your business card: 

Glenn Bishop

The Man Called... "Hey you"

Here's a pic of Glenn performing his hypnotism show.

How much do you want to bet that's the audience and not the people on stage?

"Son, get up, there's a show going on."

"Please, Mr. Hypnotist, just wake me when it's over."

I particularly like the "About Us" page.

I like the question mark. Even they can't believe you're interested in reading more about Glenn. "Are you serious? You know there are like a billion pages on the web you could be reading, right?" It seems to say.

But I feel like his website hasn't been updated in years, and I was wondering if he was still around and doing okay. I googled him but just found a lot of his old posts and mentions on message boards and such. I thought maybe he had tried to revitalize his performing character with a new mature style and a sexy new name to match, so I googled "Bishop the Magishop," but got nothing.

Finally I searched for him on facebook, and I was not disappointed.

Is this... what is this? I mean what is it supposed to be? Is it supposed to be real? Is it real? It looks like one of my deranged readers mocked it up in photoshop as a goof. Like if I had a "Create a Glenn Bishop Marquee Contest," this would have been the winning entry. I'm so confused. What happened to this theater? Who designed that signage? It looks like a goddamned ransom note. Is it the Main Street Cinema? How could they possibly allow that to be the front of their fucking place of business? It looks like pictures of those theaters that bravely remained open during The Blitz. If some guy built that for you and he was like, "Okay, I'm done now." Wouldn't you be like, "Wait, wait, wait, this looks like total dogdick. Tear this down and do it right."

Does someone want to break it to Glenn that a cinema is where you show movies, not live magic shows? I mean, I suppose it's possible. Maybe in an old movie theater with a lot of room on the stage in front of the screen. But those old theaters hold many 100s of theater goers. You really "sold out" that theater, Glenn? A week in advance? That's huge news. Why is there no record of it anywhere? Also, just a quick business tip, you don't put "Sold Out" on the front of the box-office if there are still tickets left for another night, as you mention in your post. That kind of dissuades people from purchasing tickets.

And Glenn, why is there absolutely zero information on where this theater is and how to get tickets and all that on your facebook post? Why bother posting if you're going to leave everyone in the dark like that? Why is there no mention anywhere at all in the vast extent of the internet about these sold out shows? Did you hypnotize everyone at the end to forget they attended? I wouldn't put it past you, you little scamp!

Oh, Glenn, I've missed you and your antics so much. It's great to reconnect like this.

Forty.

The Dust

I will show you fear in a handful of dust. - T.S. Eliot

I wish I was performing magic 100 years ago because -- if my reading is to be believed -- at that point in time if you had to ditch an item during your performance you could put the hand with the item into your pocket and say you were reaching in for some "woofle dust," ditch the item, come out with nothing, and pretend to sprinkle some invisible dust around. This is actually a technique described in some of our seminal texts. And not as a goof. Tarbell isn't like, "Ditch the coin when you reach into your pocket for some 'woofle dust.' No, I'm just shitting you. For fuck's sake, don't really do that." I don't think Tarbell says "for fuck's sake" anywhere in the entire course.

So I wish I was performing magic 100 years ago, because apparently audiences were so undiscriminating that you could just use this technique and everyone was just like, "Alright." Women would turn to their husbands and say, "Oh, he's reaching into his pocket for some woofle dust, dear." And he would just reply, "Mmm-yes, yes. A little dust of the woofle. Indeed." You could get away with anything! Meanwhile I'm here in 2015 and if I say something like, "I have a half-dollar." I'm shouted down with, "Bullshit. No such thing."

(An alternate theory, of course, is that no one really bought the idea of woofle dust in the past either and that magic has a long history of taking the easy way out presentationally and taking the audience for idiots. and it's not so much a suspension of disbelief we foster with these presentations, but a disengagement with the audience that leaves them too disinterested to call us out on our nonsense.)

Anyway, I've decided that one of my goals with The Jerx is to bring back the use of woofle dust as a presentational ploy, not just for myself, but for all of you as well. But this time we need to make it something that an audience can really believe in. If we can do that we will have a very powerful tool in our arsenal. Imagine being able to ditch something in full view with the audience not suspecting anything. But guys, it's going to take a lot of work to make reasonable people believe there is an invisible dust that you can sprinkle on things to make magic occur. You're going to have to invest some time and money into this. But I've laid it out for you step by step. Just follow the plan below over the course of the next 6 months or so.

The following presupposes you're a straight, married male. Mutatis mutandis, as they say.

Step 1 (Early July): At your next party or bbq, gather everyone around. Ideally 20+ people. Ask to borrow a coin. Take it with your right hand, and then place it in your left. Say, "I just need a little woofle dust." Reach into your right-hand pants pocket. Pull your hand out and then pat your pocket. "Oh...," you say, "I guess I forgot my woofle dust." Give the coin back to the person who gave it to you and walk away.

Step 2 (Mid-July): Leave an empty sandwich bag like this on a counter or coffee table in your house.

Wait a few days and someone will eventually throw it out. A day or so after they do, ask innocently, "Did you see like a clear sandwich bag on the table here?" When they say they threw it out, completely freak out on them, "What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you a fucking idiot? Why are you touching my stuff?" When they say it was just an empty bag you say, "That was the last of my woofle dust, you fucking moron!" Go root through the trash, making a huge mess on the kitchen floor. Don't clean it up. Instead go on a two hour walk or drive and when you come back don't speak to the person for three days.

Step 3 (August): At your next party or family function following that incident, gather everyone around to watch a trick. Ask to borrow a quarter. Do a false transfer retaining it in your right hand. Ditch it in your pocket as you reach in for some woofle dust. Pretend to sprinkle the dust over your left hand. When you open your left hand your spectators see what you had hidden in there at the start of the trick, which is the middle section of a folding quarter. Get really angry and say, "Goddammit. I knew I shouldn't have gotten this Chinese woofle dust, but somebody threw out my good stuff. [start muttering] This shit can't even vanish a full coin. There's no way that was pure woofle. They must have cut it with baby laxative or something." Say something racist about the Chinese.

Step 4 (Late August): If you share a computer, leave this ad that I placed on Craigslist last week open in your browser for your wife to find. (If you're reading this in the future and the ad is gone, you can find a pdf copy here.) If you don't share a computer then print it out and carry it around with you for a couple of days in your pocket, so it gets worn in a little. Add some handwritten notes to it: phone numbers, prices, and an indication that perhaps you're considering prostituting your wife for some woofle dust. See below.

Leave this out somewhere where your wife will find it.

Step 5 (Mid-September): Take 20% of the money out of your savings account or your children's college fund. Leave the receipt for this transaction somewhere conspicuous. Go out of town for three days without telling anyone. Come back in the middle of the night and crawl into bed with your wife. When she wakes and asks where you've been just say you thought you had a line on some magic supplies. When she says, "Is this that 'woofle dust' stuff again? Did you take money out of our account to buy woofle dust?" Bury your head in her chest and sob and say, "I'm so sorry. I got scammed. I'm so sorry!" Really play it up. You want to make this dramatic enough that your wife will be spreading around these issues to all your friends, family, and neighbors, trying to get their advice.

Step 6 (Late October): About six weeks later burst through your front door and give your wife a big kiss on the lips. Tell her you want to take her out to dinner "someplace fancy." Explain to her that you've got a line on some woofle dust and you just need $5000 to make it happen. But tell her it's an investment and you won't ever have to buy more ever again. Be real excited. Happier than you've been in months so she can't refuse you. Once she agrees, apologize for the way you've been acting. Tell her you know you haven't been yourself recently. And you're so sorry for losing that money and for the time you blew up at her for throwing out your woofle dust. Tell her you'll always keep this new batch on you so nothing can happen to it. 

Step 7 (Late October): Act like you've made the deal and return to normal at home.

Step 8 (Early November): When your wife is out of the house, drill a 6-inch diameter hole in your coffee table. Rough up the inside edges of the hole some so it's not too clean looking. When your wife gets home say, "Sorry, sweetheart. I spilled some woofle dust on the table. I'll replace it." But don't ever replace it, just let that hole be a constant reminder of what woofle dust can do.

Step 9 (Mid-November): A couple weeks later, when your wife is doing laundry, take all the clothes out of the washing machine, put them in a trash bag, and put them in a dumpster behind an Arby's or something. Sneak back into your house. When your wife asks you if you removed the clothes from the washing machine be like, "What? Why would I do that? Sweetheart, you are losing your mind... wait... oh god, honey... please tell me you didn't wash my jeans that were on the bed." When she admits she did, start to flip out because your woofle dust was in the pocket of those jeans. Act like you might get violent, then switch to despondent, start to cry, and say, "What are we going to do? We don't have more money to spend...." Then with a steely, solemn determination say, "Ok. This is the only way." And leave the house.

Step 10 (Mid-November): Come home a couple hours later, your face and shirt spattered with blood. "Problem solved," you say, as you stare off into the distance. Your wife is screaming at you to tell her what happened. "I got more woofle dust," you say, vacantly. "He didn't want to give it up, but I got more." As your wife wails, you continue, "Don't worry, my love. They'll never find out about it. You have to trust me. I made him... well... his body... it took a lot more than I intended... but it's gone now for good."

Step 11 (December 31st): "Who wants to see a magic trick!" you say at your New Year's Eve party. A crowd builds around you. You ask to borrow a quarter. You take it in your right hand and false transfer it into your left. "I just need a little woofle dust," you say, as you reach into your pocket to ditch the quarter. Many in the crowd stiffen and a nervous energy passes through as word has gotten around your social circle about the damage woofle dust has caused in your life. Perhaps none in the audience know the full, awful truth, but as you reach into your pocket many of them think about the toll a controlling substance has had on their life, some will think a sympathetic thought for you and your wife, but here's the great part, none of them will be thinking, "I bet he's ditching a coin."

After you sprinkle the invisible dust over your left fist, open your hand slowly to show the coin has vanished.

Someone standing next to your wife will pat her on the hand and say, "A new year is coming, dear. It will be okay."

Somewhere a child exclaims, "That woofle dust is powerful stuff!" 

"Yes," your wife murmurs, to no one in particular. "Too powerful."

It's just that easy!  And now you can use the woofle dust justification with impunity.

Acorns

If your goal is to come up with more interesting presentations for magic, go create a google doc or get a notebook and start filling it with the things you see or experience (in your life, in the news, in pop culture) that are non-magic related that you find intriguing in some way. I have a list that is 100s of items long. These aren't ideas for effects or even ideas for presentation. They're not even ideas at all at this point. They're just ideas for ideas.

Here are some of the more recent things I've taken note of that could potentially grow into something more.

1. The climax of Revenge from Alfred Hitchcock Presents - I'm going to spoil this 60 year old television episode so go watch it first if that's an issue for you. In this episode a woman is left home alone while her husband goes off to work. When he gets home he finds his wife has been attacked (the implication is that she's been raped) and she's in this distant, almost catatonic state. The police are called in to investigate but there's nothing to go on. Later the man is driving his devastated wife through town. She has the 1000-yard-stare of a Vietnam vet. As they drive she sees a man walking down the street and she says breathlessly to her husband, "There he is! That's him!" Her husband follows the man into a building and ends up killing him. He gets back in the car with his wife and they continue to drive. She is again zoned out. At one point she becomes animated again, "There he is! That's him!" she says, indicating some other sap who's walking down the street. And then she sinks back inside herself and it dawns on her husband that his wife no longer has a grip on reality and he just killed an innocent man. 

What I like about it: The moment where she says "There he is! That's him!" for a second time is so chilling and great. I like the idea of misidentification. I like the idea of it seeming like you've come to a conclusion when you really haven't. I think there's a trick in there somewhere. Something where you go through the effect and seemingly wrap it up at the end, but then something happens and they realize it was a false conclusion. I'm not sure exactly how this would play out, but there's something there.

2. The song Testament to Youth in Verse by The New Pornographers - Specifically the part from 1:50 on. The New Pornographers are probably the most chill-inducing band to see in person and seeing this song live was one of the most electric moments I've ever had at a concert.

What I like about it: I love the way the ending builds. The New Pornographers are a big band with a bunch of great vocalists and they all come in and layer over this simple one-word melody and it becomes huge and deep. I want to do a trick that ends in a similar way. We tend to think of multiple revelations or kicker endings as happening one after another, often they're disconnected from each other, and frequently there's a sense of diminishing returns. I want to do an effect where there is a simple climax that you keep returning to and building on with additional climaxes that are in harmony with it and build it into something overwhelming. I have a multiple selection routine I'm creating that sort of plays out this way. So instead of revelation after revelation, each one builds on the other. But I'm still searching for a better use of this kind of climax.

3. This comic by XKCD -

What I like about it: I just think there's a good presentation in there somewhere. It's just a matter of finding the right trick to connect it to.

This is Not a Post

This is just to say (where my William Carlos Williams fans at? Let me hear you! No? Damn, that's cold. So sweet and so cold.) that going forward, new posts will show up at 3am New York time. Why is that?

1. I'm a night owl.
2. The majority of my readers are in the US or England so putting up a post at that time means there will be something waiting for them in the morning, which is when many people go through their bookmarks/rss feeds.
3. While there will likely be intermittent posts when warranted, now you know you can just check in once a day. I don't have advertisers to appeal to, I don't need page views from people checking in throughout the day looking for new posts.
4. When I was a kid I always liked the idea of things going on, work being done, in the middle of the night. Where I'm from, Wegmans is the big grocery store, and they're open 24 hours. If I'd wake up in the middle of the night I'd think, "Someone is buying a can of Manwich right now." 

See you in a few hours.

The Month of Driveling Langorously

Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to me! Hey everyone, this site just celebrated its one month birthday. What? That's not a thing? Well, la-di-da, look at you Mr. Encyclopedia. You're a real hotshot. 

Annnyyywho... so yeah, it's been a month of daily posts. And my plan is to continue that for some time. Hell, I've got plenty to say. And you've got nowhere else to go. What are you going to do? Read the other daily magic blogs with scintillating content? Exactly. I get a lot of emails asking if I'm going to disappear again. I realize I'm responsible for this question due to my previous actions. When I wrote MCJ I would go on hiatuses, take treasure hunting voyages, and just disappear for weeks. And then, of course, the whole site vanished. But don't worry sweetheart, Daddy's here. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. I cleared out a couple months in my life to make this site a priority. And when that time is over I will hopefully still be able to continue it at the same pace if I can think of some way to make the site self-supporting. Our best hope is that some wealthy benefactor writes me a fat check every year to keep the site going. And if he has some weird contingency like I have to fuck him once a year, I'm fine with that. 

Where was I? Oh, a number of people have emailed me and asked me how they can support the site. At this point in time all I ask is that you read it and spread the word to people you think might like it. The longevity of this site does not depend on massive amounts of readers. But there is a subset of magicians who are really into the type of stuff I'm writing about and the longevity of this site does depend on as many of them finding this site as possible. A lot of you have already been spreading the word and it's been cool to watch the fanbase grow in a very grassroots way. It's almost like a secret-society. There are no comments on this site. I have essentially no social media presence. The only advertising I want to do (buy every banner ad on the Magic Cafe) Steve Brooks won't allow. So this site has grown very organically. And it's satisfying to see. Not because I need the validation of strangers reading my words. But because when I read message boards or attend magic conventions I often think, "I might as well live on a different planet than these people." So it's nice to see that my perspective on things is shared by others. 

Don't get me wrong. A lot of people still hate this site. They react to it the same way this lady reacts to handbags:

They look down on us like we're a bunch of slobs. These snobs with their family crests, long cigarette holders, and country club lunches. They're like those people in the song Signs by Five Man Electrical Band, the people who went to the trouble of having a sign made that said "long-haired freaky people need not apply." A sign! They think they can just write us a check and we'll stop seeing their daughter? Are you kidding me? Sloane and I are in love, and you're going to have to find a way to deal with that or I'll be at her bedroom window with a ladder at the next full moon. And I don't care what the town council says. We will have a school dance if we want. The mistake you make is in thinking this site is just me, but in reality there is an army forming. And we will pop out of the ground and mow you down fucking Red Dawn style if you get in our way. Wolverines!!! Am I mixing up my 80s movie references? You would think that, wouldn't you? Everything has to fit into a nice little box in your world. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...and an athlete...and a basket case...a princess...and a criminal. Does that answer your question?

Sincerely yours, the Breakfart Club.

Presentation: Limitless Ahead

This is a presentation for a one-ahead style routine. These routines are so basic that they're often included in beginner's books. It's a classic close-up mentalism effect, but it has a few inherent weaknesses:

1. You have to force something
2. The last thing you predict is often the least impressive. (Since the others are free choices and the last one is generally a force.)
3. People will balk at the idea that they have to tell you what they're thinking of in the midst of the routine. After all, you're the mindreader. And when you prefer to perform one-on-one like I do you can't use the excuse, "Okay, tell everyone here what you're thinking." And I think even when they don't know the exact choreography of the effect, they understand that you asking for information you supposedly already know is somehow part of the secret.

As I've said before, coming up with new methods is not my strength, so whenever there is an issue with an effect I try and address it presentationally. This presentation for the one-ahead routine eliminates the need for a force, justifies any weakness in the final prediction (and is perhaps strengthened by that weakness), eliminates any hesitation on the part of the spectator to give their answers out loud, and is more interesting and affecting to the spectator than any other presentation I've seen for this type of effect.

Below is a transcription of how the effect played out for me in one specific instance in the past. It will never play out this way for you because this is specific to me, the person I was showing this to, the items I had on hand, the layout of my apartment, etc. Let me reiterate, this is not intended as a script, but just an example of this presentational framework.

Limitless Ahead

"Do you trust me?" I ask.

"No. Not even a little bit," she deadpans.

I take a tiny ziploc bag with one red pill in it and toss it on the coffee table.

"I want you to take that. I promise it's completely safe. It's going to do something to you, but nothing bad. Once they begin, the effects wear off after a few minutes."

She picks up the little bag and looks at the pill. "What's it going to do to me?"

"Well, it gives you heightened senses. You'll be able to sense things on almost an unconscious level. But I promise you, it's very safe and there are no long-term..."

She's already taking it. She's my friend, she trusts me, she knows I'm not giving her roofies. And she probably understands this is just a little bit of interactive theater she's about to take part in.

"I don't feel anything," she says.

"It takes a while to kick in. And it's not going to feel like much, just a tingle in your head. It's not going to be this overwhelming rush of sensations. Everything will be heightened but your brain has a governor to make sure it's not overwhelmed with input from your senses. It's almost like hooking up a blu-ray DVD player to a shitty old tv. No matter how powerful and clear the information coming in is, the tv can only interpret that information and broadcast it at the level it was manufactured to."

"So my brain is a shitty old tv?" she asks.

"Precisely. Now you're going to be taking in a lot more information than you're used to, and in different ways than you are accustomed to. I'm going to be asking you some questions and when you answer I just want you to go with the first thought that comes to your mind. It will almost feel like you're guessing, but as long as you don't question yourself, you'll be fine. It's going to take a few minutes before it's in your system and once it is we don't have a lot of time, so I'm going to go get some stuff ready now. Watch some tv until I come back."

I then go into the next room and she can hear me rummaging through some things. After a few minutes I come out and toss some business cards, a pen, and some stickers on the table. I ask her to hold up her hand to me and place my hand against hers. "I'm thinking of one of my fingers," I say. "Which one is it?" She says the ring finger. I say, "No. It's not ready yet," and leave again. She hears me in the other room counting out change. After a few more minutes I return again and again put my hand against hers. "What finger am I thinking of?" She says the pinky and I nod and say, "Ok, let's get started."

Test One

I write something on one of the business cards, fold it up and put it in the front pocket of her jeans.

"In a moment I'm going to go into the bathroom, turn on the faucet, and whisper a word. I want you to sit here and just be still and see if you can pick up on the word. Don't stress about it. Just sit and let it come into your mind."

I go out and come back. She sits there looking uncertain.

"Don't question yourself. What word do you think I whispered?

"Uhm... pavement?" she says.

"Great! Let's try another one."

Test Two

This time I write something significantly longer on the card, fold it, and put it in her pocket.

"Okay. I've got an emotion in my mind. In a moment I'm going to turn my back to you and think about this emotion. More specifically I'm going to think about a time I felt that emotion. Give me a little while to get into the right state of mind, but when I say 'Okay' I want you to name the emotion that you believe I'm feeling."

I turn my back and after 30 seconds I say, "Okay."

"I think you're... happy," she says.

Test Three

"I got these scratch and sniff stickers at the dollar store at the end of the block. Take a look, we have all these different fruits. I'm going to step into the other room, put a sticker on one of these cards, scratch it very gently and then wave the card into the air. When I come back I just want you to tell me the first thing you thought you smelled."

I leave and come back after a short while. I have a folded card in my hand which I then tuck into her pocket with the others. 

"What sticker do you think is on that card?" I ask, pointing at her pocket.

"It's banana, definitely." 

"Such confidence!" I say. "You're on a roll, let's try another."

Test Four

I go to the other room and come back with a glass full of pennies and an empty glass. 

"Okay, I counted these earlier. In a moment I'm going to pour the pennies from one glass to another. I want you to watch them as they fall and hear them as they land in the other glass." 

I write down something on a business card and put it in her pocket with the rest. Then I pour the pennies from one glass to another. 

"How many pennies are there?"

"64," she says.

"Hmmm, no. That's way off. Let's try again." I pour the coins back into the original glass. "What do you think?" I ask.

"84?"

"You're actually really close," I say, "but I think it's starting to wear off. There were 86 coins in the glass. But you did amazing. So much better than I did when I took the pill.  Here, take the cards out of your pocket."

She dumps the cards on the table. I open the last one which says 86. "I don't know if your last one was a guess or not, but if it was, you were actually strangely close."

The next one I open has a banana sticker on it. "You nailed that one. But you already knew that."

The next one says pavement on it.

The final one I open up says Happy (I was thinking of the first time we met on the subway). She melts a little because I'm a sweetheart, then looks at all the cards and says, "This is crazy!"

Method

You already know the method. Or at least you should. If you don't know how to do a one-ahead routine, I'm not sure how much of this blog makes any sense to you. But because there are a couple twists in this particular routine (the use of a sticker, leaving the room), I'll give you the quick rundown.

• The first card into her pocket says 86 on it.
• For the second card I write pavement but then pretend like I'm writing a lot more.
• For the third card, when I leave the room to apparently put the sticker on the card, I actually write the emotion she said and then a context for that emotion in parenthesis.
• For the fourth card, when I leave to get the pennies I put the correct sticker on the card and then just pretend to write on that card when I'm back in front of her.

Notes

1. You really need to label the cards with the category you're ostensibly testing as you give them to the spectator. In the above example those categories would be: whisper-emotion-scent-coins or something like that. This labeling procedure is probably standard, something that goes back to Corinda, but just for completeness, the way I do it is as follows: I have a stack of business cards in my hand, blank side up. On the opposite side of the top card, in one of the corners, it has the category for the last test (in this case "coins.") I do a double-turnover and say something like, "We'll label these to make things clear later." And I openly write "Whisper" in one of the corners of the card. Then I do another double-turnover, tip the cards toward me, write 86 on the card, then fold it into quarters with 86 on the inside and the word coins (where she would expect to see "whisper") on the folded-in part of the outside. If that makes any sense. Now you're set up to continue this ruse for the rest of the routine.

Okay, you don't need to label the cards, but I do it for four reasons. 1. It makes the effect bulletproof. 2. Some non-magicians are familiar with the one-ahead principle, but labeling the cards is an extra bit of deception that makes this something different. 3. It clarifies the effect. It makes sense that if you're going to put all the predictions (or "target ideas" or whatever they are) in one place together that you'd differentiate them from each other on both sides. 4. It allows you to open them in the order that is the most dramatically pleasing.

2. What do I use for a pill? A vitamin. A tic-tac. Whatever. One time I wanted to do this and I was at a place where I didn't have anything with me that could serve as a pill, so I did it like this... I went and filled up two paper cups with water. I came back and said to my friend, "Choose one for me to drink and one for you to drink." She did and we drank some. I said, "Don't freak out, but I did something to one of these cups of water. It's nothing gross or dangerous, don't worry. If it was I wouldn't have given you the choice of which one you would drink." I then lift the cups up and there is an X on the bottom of one of them. Regardless of which one it's on I say, "Okay, you drank the spiked one. That's good. It's more fun that way." And then I go on to explain the premise to her.

3. I have no issue putting something in the pocket of my friend's pants, man or woman. Maybe that doesn't fly if you're working tables at Dave and Busters, but otherwise you should be good. If you do this and come off creepy, then you're a creep. You need to work on that.

4. There is a very good opportunity for a hit on the final test if you use the coin test I mention above. If you tell someone there is less than 100 coins, and they can see there are a significant amount, their guess is likely to be between 60 and 90, I've found. And if you give them two chances with some leeway on either side to be close, you almost always end with a pseudo hit. But I don't do it that way anymore. I actually like them to be way off on the last one. To me it emphasizes that there was something affecting her in the previous tests. Plus I enjoy the humor of a completely incorrect guess on the last one more than I do the impossibility of four perfect or near-perfect predictions.

5. I go with four tests total (as opposed to the three predictions you usually see in these types of effects) knowing that the last one won't work. 

6. The idea of writing not just the emotion, but also the memory you were drawing on for that emotion is a good one. Not only does it further camouflage the method, but it's just more compelling. If the card says "Jealousy," that's fine, but if it says, "Jealousy (8th-grade dance)," there's more depth and interest to that reveal.

7. Again, what I delineated above was just an example. If you were to perform this you would come up with your own tests and scenarios. Part of the fun of this is coming up with these ideas in the moment, because they can literally be pretty much anything. Just try and make it so they appeal to different senses. That's much more interesting than "Read my mind three times in a row," or something like that. Some of the other tests I've done in this Limitless framework are:

• Gone outside with a person and flashed them a word written on a card from 100 feet away which she successfully read.
• Said, "I want you to imagine an invisible keyboard hanging in the air between us. It goes from here to here. I'm going to type a short sentence in the air at normal typing speed. I want you to try and pick up on what it is I'm typing. Remember, the keyboard is backwards from your perspective, so you'll have to flip it around in your mind." She "correctly" determined I had typed "Joy to the world."
• Had her wave her hand over my body and determine what part of my body I was thinking of. (It was my right wrist, you sicko.)
• Brushed my teeth and rinsed with mouthwash and then made-out with a girl I was seeing to test if she could taste what I had for lunch. (Kind of the reverse of my Breakfart app).

The Purpose of Magic in the Early 21st Century

I'm just fucking with you. I don't really want to write about the purpose of magic in the early 21st century, I just want to ramble a little. And I thought it would be funny if a post with that title followed a post on a hypothetical app that you fart into. You see what I'm going for, yes? I want you to come here every day and not know if this is going to be the smartest or dumbest thing you'll read all day. 

This is the locus of pure possibility, he thought, his neck prickling. What a man can be the next minute bears no relation to what he is or what he was the minute before. (Walker Percy, The Last Gentleman)

I'm reading a book called, Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected. I'm not far enough into it to tell if it's any good or not, but I do think it is a book you'll find interesting at the very least. Early in the book they talk about the concept of surprise in this way:

When something unexpected or misexpected happens... [a] brain wave grips your attention, stops everything else you’re doing, and plugs you into the moment. If you have a cell phone, computer, TV, and sprawling to-do list, you probably already see the power of this effect. Our attention is so splintered that having a single focus is almost impossible. Unless we’re surprised. Surprise unifies our attention and gives us a deep experience right here in the present.

That last line may not encapsulate the purpose of magic in the 21st century, but I think it definitely suggests one of the benefits of magic. It's similar to Paul Harris' idea of magic bringing the spectator to a child-like state of astonishment. But it highlights that moment without infantilizing the spectator in the process. And as a concept, it's one I'd be much more inclined to discuss with someone as being an actual benefit of magic. To say, "Magic brings you back to a childhood state of astonishment," is too easily turned into this in a spectator's mind: "Magic will make your feel dumb. You know, like a dumbass baby who doesn't understand shit. Here, let me take you back to the time when you were the dumbest and most vulnerable as my gift to you." And on top of that, is it even true? Are babies constantly in amazement? If so they seem pretty chill about it for the most part. So I would have a hard time saying that to someone.

On the other hand, I could see myself saying to someone, "When you watch tv, or listen to music, or even go to a play or the ballet, you can enjoy yourself and yet your mind might not be fully there. Even with more intense situations, if you're at a funeral or having sex you can split your attention. This is especially true if you're having sex at a funeral. But when you see good magic there will be a point, however brief, where everything else falls away and you are 100% here in the moment and the only things that exist are you and I and this experience."

It is much better to characterize the moment of astonishment as one of connection and presence rather than putting the emphasis on their instant of ignorance.

But while I could see myself saying what I wrote above to a spectator, I doubt I ever would. The truth is, your goal should be to do work that is so fun or interesting that you don't have to justify it with some grand rationale. If you sing and play guitar and when you're done with a song someone says, "Why are you doing that?" that's a bad sign. Plus it's much more powerful to a person to let them identify the nature of the experience, rather than to try and force it on them. Just give them the moment.

For me, giving people those surprising, mysterious, fun, unusual moments to interpret and assign their own meaning to is the purpose of magic in the early 21st century. See? I dipsy-doodled my way back around to a topic I didn't really intend to discuss.

I should say that despite what might come off as a dismissal of Paul Harris' groundbreaking philosophy, I still think he's a genius and is right about most everything. Oh, except he wrote that movie "Nice Girls Don't Explode," and frankly slut-shaming squirters in the early 21st century is just NOT okay. Nice girls DO explode, Mr. Harris. And if you want to debate that, take it up with my duvet cover.