The Magic of Expectations

Years ago, before this site even existed, we tested a rather simple idea in one of our magic focus groups. We showed people a basic coin vanish using a Raven gimmick. There was nothing more to the trick other than the coin vanish which—due to the nature of the gimmick—is very clean and visual.

We then had them rate the trick on a scale of 1 to 10. I don’t know the exact language we used at that time because we didn’t record much for posterity other than the actual final results. But it’s likely we asked them to rate how impossible the trick seemed on a scale of 1 to 10, where a rating of 5 would be what they considered an “average” trick.

The trick had an average rating of 6.0. So they felt the trick was a little better than your typical magic trick.

We showed another group the same coin vanish and their average rating was a 8.8. So they felt the trick was really great.

The performances of the coin vanish were identical. So what caused the second group to rate it so much higher?

For the second group, we first taught them a bad french drop. That was the only difference. That was the difference that caused their appreciation for the vanishing coin using a Raven to be almost 50% higher than the other group.

Setting expectations in some manner and then exceeding them with an effect allows the audience to appreciate things in a way they can’t if you simply perform the effect on its own. The expectations inform them what to appreciate and what to remember. And the expectations provide contrast that make the effect seem stronger.

When they just saw the coin vanish on its own, there wasn’t much for them to acknowledge other than the fact that it was a trick and it fooled them. They didn’t know what to pay attention to, so it becomes kind of a binary thing. “I saw the coin vanish and it fooled me.”

But when preceded by the lesson in the French Drop, they now had expectations. How does a coin vanish? Well, it vanishes when you mime an action that makes people think it’s in one hand when really it’s in another. So, for the coin to vanish, the hands need to come together. And at the end one of the hands will have to hide the coin.

If that’s your expectation and your understanding and someone says, “Yeah, I’ll show you a slightly more advanced version of that.” And you see a vanish where the hands don’t touch. There is no “miming.” And the coin is truly gone. Then you will find the vanish much stronger.

But you only really knew to make note of those things because of the expectations that were established.

Those of you who are familiar with my work will see that I use this all the time. I’ve written up a number of presentations that involve seeing the same trick multiple times. Or telling people about a trick (in which the expectations are established) and then performing it in a more impressive manner. Once you start using this technique, you’ll try to find ways to use it a lot too, because it’s a very simple, yet powerful way to increase the strength of an effect.

Monday Mailbag #47

Just had my first full gig in over a year. […]

Just thought this might be of interest - I decided to try your 'Unkown Edible' idea and I decided to use it as a pre-show item. It was really good that I did, because the guy took a really long time to think of something and ended up pulling out his phone to look something up. I was setting up anyway so no biggie, but I guess I wasn't expecting that to be such a hard question. Maybe it was just unique to this guy, but I could see this being hard for some people in retrospect.

I'm not super into pre-show in general, but occasionally use it when I want to try out a new imp device or something. Well, in this case - I'll be doing it again and specifically saying something along the lines of "I want to set this up now so that you have time to think, so I don't put you on the spot later".

I'm not sure if that's a 'normal' excuse for preshow, but in this case it ended up making a lot of sense. Just raised the idea of choosing things that might inherently take a little thinking or reflection as a 'reason' for preshow.

Obviously you don't do preshow exactly, but I imagine there is an analogy in the social performing world. —MP

Yeah, that’s smart. One of the benefits of using “unknown personals” in social performing is because it can take a bit of thought and energy to come up with an answer. The longer it takes them to formulate an answer, the less they can think, “That must the obvious response,” or, “I guess everyone says that.” So using that as part of the rationale for pre-show work makes sense to me. And that’s the case whether it’s the type of pre-show where it’s obvious to the rest of the audience that you spoke to the person before the show or not.

The absolute dumbest thing I’ve seen done with pre-show is when the mentalist will say, “Before the show I asked you to think of a card.” Or “think of a celebrity” or “think of the name of someone close to you.” There’s (usually) no reason given why this was done pre-show. (As I wrote in an early post on pre-show work.)

But using a particularly meaty “Unknown Personal” question completely justifies the process. “Often people accuse me of doing research on the people in my audience. If I tell you your zodiac sign or you mother’s first name, you’re much more likely to think I have rudimentary web search skills than that I have extraordinary mind reading skills. That’s why, before the show, I asked Josh to think of something that I couldn’t find online. Something he didn’t even know himself before I asked him. Now, Josh, this took you a while to think of, yes? And you’d never thought of it before? And since you thought of it, you’ve never told another soul, correct?”

That makes a lot more sense than, “Before the show I asked Josh to think of an important person in his life.” People don’t generally need ample warning to think of the name of their loved ones.

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Will you be releasing the information from your, “How Much Money Do You Make” question which you posed a little while ago? —DE

Probably not. The answers I got were really kind of interesting. But I didn’t really get enough responses for the answers to be meaningful in any broader way. That’s probably because the majority of my audience doesn’t perform professionally. But I’ll leave the question up a little while longer. If there is an influx of new responses then maybe I’ll do a post on it at some point.

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How do you handle people asking you to do a trick again? You’ve said you try not to “break the spell” even after the trick is over, but if they ask you to do it again and you refuse, isn’t that a big flashing light that what they’re seeing is a trick? —BE

One of the benefits of non-magician-centric premises, is that you can usually build in a rationale why what you’re showing them can’t be repeated. If it’s a ritual, then it’s a ritual that can only be done once. If it’s a psychological game, then it’s one that only works once, because after you see it your mind blocks the psychological mechanism by which it works. If it’s a crazy coincidence, then yes, it just happens that one time. That’s how coincidences work. If it’s something that depends on the positioning of the stars in the sky, then we only have this brief window to do this—our next opportunity will be in 2034. If it’s a manifestation of spirit-energy, then the spirit energy gets “burned off” after being manifested and that spirit can’t be contacted for usually 60-90 days (well, that’s what all the books about spiritualism tell us).

So if it’s the sort of trick they’ll want to see repeated, and I can’t repeat it, then I’ll try and build that into the story.

But even if I have an excuse why it won’t work again, I will often try to do it again. What I mean is, let’s say we manifest a spirit that moves an object across the table. If someone says, “Do it again,” I don’t just say, “No. We can’t. The spirit energy has dissipated.” That feels too much like an excuse.

Instead I’ll say, “Hmmm… okay, yeah, let’s try. I think they say it probably won’t work without some sort of spiritual refractory period, but I don’t know if I really believe that.” Then we’ll go through the manifestation procedure again and… nothing happens. “Huh… I guess maybe it does need that waiting period before trying again.”

The thing is, I don’t want it to feel like I’m brushing them off. “No. We can’t do it again because [reason].” Instead, if someone asks to see something again, my attitude is, “Yeah, let’s try that again. They say it probably won’t work, but who knows….”

The traditional recommendation when people ask to see something for a second time is to “put the trick away and go on to another effect.” I’m not sure that’s good advice in any situation, but it’s especially bad advice when performing socially. Put yourself in the spectator’s shoes. You asked me to pay attention to this thing you wanted to show me, and now that I’m expressing interest in it you’re going to put it away and move on to something else? That’s a very bizarre way to interact with someone and it undercuts the notion that this thing you were showing them was interesting or special in some way. It’s almost like fucking someone and then walking out the door after you shoot your load. Stick around and cuddle for a while.

Now, you might say, “Okay, but I don’t want to end on the trick not working. I want to stop after it’s a success.” That makes sense, but in social magic you have to try and look at it as a holistic experience. How you get into an effect and out of an effect are part of the experience.

So if I show you a trick with my lucky crystal and afterwards you ask me to do it again, and I say, “Hey, get your own lucky crystal!” and put it away in my pocket, or I say, “If you think that’s good, wait until I tell you about this time I played 3 Card Monte.” Then the trick is ending in an awkward way. The trick itself was a success but then the interaction took a weird turn, and that likely undercuts the experience of the trick.

But if I show you a trick with my lucky crystal and afterwards you ask me to repeat it, and my attitude is, “Sure, let’s give it a shot.” But I give some caveat on why it might not work again, and it turns out that it doesn’t work again, I don’t think that takes away from the trick’s initial success. And it can, in some cases, even reinforce the story you’re telling. If it was “just a trick” then of course it could be repeated over and over… but if it really somehow relies on this crystal that can be drained of its energy… well then I guess maybe you could only do it occasionally.

The point being, I think it’s much easier to come up with a reasonable rationale for why something didn’t work a second time, than it is to come up with a reasonable rationale for why you wouldn’t want to try, or a reasonable rationale for why you’re moving on to something else.

Dustings #42

As June winds down, I want to sincerely wish a happy Pride Month to all the LGBTQ+ magicians in our midst. I hope we’re at a point in time where you feel welcomed and accepted in every aspect of the world of magic. If nothing else, you’re always welcome at this site.

So Happy Pride Month to all of you who fall under that rainbow umbrella, including great performers such as Michael Carbonaro, Neil Patrick Harris, Derek DelGaudio, Chris Ramsay, any anyone else who shows up in the Google image search results for: super gay magician.

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A few months ago, I had this to say about the upcoming (at the time) television show, Big Trick Energy…

I think what people love about prank shows, or things like the Carbonaro Effect, or even just a David Blaine special is that they have this fake thing—the prank or the magic trick—but we get to see people’s genuine reactions to that fake thing. If the reactions to Blaine’s tricks didn’t feel legitimate, he never would have had a special in the first place.

But from the clips I’ve seen, when it comes to this show, everything seems fake. The tricks, the reactions, even their reactions to the reactions.

So it’s this weird situation where you have a phony reaction to a phony scenario. My gut tells me that’s going to make it difficult for people to connect to the show in any real way. But what the hell do I know?

Well, even a dumb bitch like me can be right occasionally, and in this case it looks like I pegged what the issue with the show would be. To call this show an abortion would not be accurate, because abortion actually has some proponents.

I haven’t watched the show (nothing against it, I just don’t watch much magic generally), but I searched reddit to find what the non-magician consensus was. It’s… not good.

Ouch. Those weren’t bad comments that I cherry-picked from good comments. Those comments were representative of the consensus. (On reddit, at least. But similarly on IMDB it has one of the lowest scores for a tv show I’ve ever seen.)

I usually feel bad for people when something flops. Like if there is a new restaurant that opens in the neighborhood and it’s always mostly empty, I feel miserable for them. Which is strange because I’m pretty indifferent to my own failures. I just have a lot of sympathy for others.

But here I don’t really feel too bad for the guys behind the show. It doesn’t seem like this was a passion project where we were getting a glimpse of their true personalities. In that case I would feel for them if it turned out to be hot garbage. But this just seems like they were trying to be something they’re not, the filming was rushed, and it was shot during a pandemic. That’s a bad mix.

I don’t know if a second season is on the horizon, but if so, here is what they should do. They should take the Dominos Pizza tactic from 10 years ago where they came out and said, “Yeah, our pizza sucks. Now we’re going to make it good.” Don’t hide from the fact that the show didn’t work. Address the issues head on. And make it a show that is, in part, about rebuilding the show into something better. Sure, that might be a flop as well, but at least it would be interesting.

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Congratulations to Joshua Jay who recently graced the cover of Ohio State’s alumni magazine.

Those of you outside the the United States might be wondering why any university would feature Josh on the cover of their alumni magazine. “Ohio State must be a very small school,” you’re thinking. “Very few alumni? Maybe a plane crash took out a whole class at some point leaving slim pickings?” No, actually Ohio State is one of the largest schools in the country and has a huge alumni pool to pick from. So making the cover is a great achievement.

The phrases “Joshua Jay” and “cover boy” remind me of a funny misunderstanding I had once with Andi Gladwin. This was years ago. We were supposed to have a meeting about them buying out the Jerx and turning it into a showcase for Josh and Andi’s humor writing. But when I got to their offices, Josh wasn’t there. Andi mentioned he would be about 20 minutes late because he was at a cover shoot for a magazine. At the time, Josh had just been in the New York Times and on the cover of a couple magic periodicals, so his face was really getting out there. And I was like, “Damn, this guy is all over the place. What magazine is he going to be on now?” And Andi said that it was a photo shoot for Bon Appétit magazine.

“Is there anything this guy can’t do?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Andi replied.

“Well, he does the writing and the lecturing and the books and the shows. It’s just a lot of different stuff. I didn’t realize he could cook too.”

“Huh?” Andi said.

“Well, you don’t get on the cover of Bon Appétit if you can’t cook.”

Andi waved away what I was saying. “I’m sorry, my bad,” he said. “I should have enunciated better. He is on the cover of Boner Petite, The Quarterly Journal for Men Who Suffer With Micro-Penis.”

Just one of those funny misunderstandings!

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For those of you who are following along with my transformation from magic blogger to bible scholar, I would like to share with you my new favorite passage from the good book. Before I started reading the bible this year, I didn’t consider myself a “religious” person. But that book contains passages that are full of such truth and beauty that it’s very hard not to feel yourself drawn into its belief system.

Recently, I’ve found myself in moments of quiet contemplation, reflecting on the awesome power and universal truth of Psalm 137:9

51 Cases South

Here is a theoretical idea for a parlor or stage routine. I don’t know if it’s any good, but I think it’s kind of interesting and there are a couple moments in the piece that I like.

The magician says, “One time I saw this guy perform a trick. He had a deck of cards. He told me to name any card in the deck. I named the 5 of Hearts. Very slowly, without doing anything sneaky, he slid the deck from the card case, spread the cards between his hands, and there was one card reversed in the deck. It was the 5 of Hearts.

“Do you want to know how he did it? Well, the truth is, I don’t know. And the reason I don’t isn’t because I can’t think of a way it can be done. It’s because I know of so many ways it could be done that I don’t know which method he used.

“One thing people don’t understand about magicians is how much they’re specialists. There are performers who can make things appear. There are performers who can make objects change color. There are performers who can make things float. Some can do all these things. But not many. It’s like playing an instrument. There are some guys who can play a lot of instruments well. But usually if you play a bunch of instruments you’re really only particularly good at one and just okay at the others. Magic is like that too. Most everyone has their speciality.

“So if you want to do the trick where the one card the person names is found reversed in the deck, you’re going to use the method that’s in line with your specialty. Some guys know what people will say, so they just reverse the card they know will be named. Some guys can make you say something without you knowing it. So they just reverse any random card and make sure that’s the one you name. Some guys don’t know what you’ll say, and they can’t make you say anything, but they can make things appear. So they just wait for you to name a card and then make it appear face-up in the deck. Other performers can change an object’s orientation, so for them it’s simply a matter of magically reversing the card. And still others can cloud people’s minds. They’ll tell you that your card is reversed in the deck, and you’ll swear you see that it is, but it’s not really there.

“Tonight I’ll show you how I would do the trick.”

The curtain behind the performer opens and there is a sawhorse on either end of the stage with a piece of wood resting across the two. The wood is just a few inches in width, but it extends across the entire stage. The wood is acting as a shelf that is about hip height to the performer. On top of the “shelf” are 52 decks of cards in their cases, standing on their bottom edge.

The performer has a few members of the audience work together to name a card. They come up with the 3 of Diamonds.

“The 3 of Diamonds? Okay, okay.”

The magician steps back so he’s standing behind the shelf of cards that goes all the way across the stage.

“3 of Diamonds, 3 of Diamonds, 3 of Diamonds,” he mumbles as he slowly walks down the row of decks. “It should be here, I think.” He picks up one of the cases. Opens it up and thumbs through the cards a bit. “Nope, one off,” he says. And puts that case back down.

He takes the next case in the row and removes the deck of cards from it.

“Look. Pay close attention. All I do is spread this deck, very cleanly. And… miraculously… the one card you named is the one card that’s reversed in this deck.”

The magician spreads to one reversed card. He pulls it out, and it’s the 3 of Diamonds. The audience is unimpressed.

“When I said I could make your freely named card be the one card that was reversed in the deck, you probably didn’t imagine me having 51 other decks in play. That is a little underwhelming, I suppose. As you probably guessed, there is a different card reversed in each of these decks.”

The magician puts the deck of cards back in its case and replaces the case on the shelf where it was originally.

He then walks over to one edge of the shelf, still standing behind it.

“It’s not impressive when you see it like that. But that’s the method I need to use. I’m not good at making things appear. And I’m not good at making predictions.

“What I am… is a vanisher.”

The magician removes a magic wand from his inside coat pocket and begins to walk behind the row of decks. He makes a tapping motion above the cards on the near end of of the row. “Bippity,” he says, and continues walking. When he gets to the middle of the row he makes another tapping motion with the wand. “Boppity,” he says. As he gets to the far end of the row he makes a final tapping motion above the cards on that end. “Boo,” he says.

Then he flicks his wrist of the hand holding the wand and the “wand” unfolds. It’s actually a black folding fan with white tips.

The magician once agains walks behind the shelf. This time he holds the fan at hip height and flutters it in short, rapid movements at the decks. As he walks, the breeze from the fan causes the card cases to fall off the plank of wood, tumbling to the floor where they clatter emptily, following the magicians path across the stage. When he reaches the other side, only one case is still standing, the one from which he had spread to the named card earlier.

Method

Well, you know, it’s just an invisible deck and a bunch of empty cases, of course.

The trick was inspired by some emails from Joe Mckay in which he suggested a few different sucker tricks using an invisible deck and a number of empty card cases where the spectators would assume you had access to a bunch of decks in order to do your trick, but then you reveal that all the cases are empty. (The original idea here seems to belong to Dr. Sawa. Although similar concepts have been explored by a few other magicians, including Asi Wind on his Fool Us appearance.)

What I wanted to do was remove the “sucker trick” element of the effect. Rather than say, “Ah-ha! I fooled you. You thought all these other cases contained decks too, but they’re actually empty!” I decided to go with the idea that yes, these other cases did in fact have decks in them, but I’ve caused them to vanish. If one was ever to perform this for real, I would recommend adding a couple convincers at the start to reinforce the idea that there are 52 actual decks on stage. For example, you could “accidentally” knock one of the decks off the wooden shelf, causing its cards to spill out on the floor. In the process of gathering up the cards and returning the deck back to its original position, you would switch the cased deck for an empty one at some moment where your body is blocking the view of the audience.

I think it’s kind of an interesting effect. I like the premise, and the idea of giving them a peek behind the curtain of how different magic specialists would accomplish the same trick. I like using an Invisible Deck as the method for a vanish. And I like the fact that it sort of jerks people around with what they’re seeing. I would assume that after the decks “vanish” a good portion of the audience will come to the conclusion that those decks never were there. But if that’s true, they have to reassess the moment where the magician spread the cards to show their reversed card. This moment—that originally meant nothing—is now the moment of impossibility (if it’s true the other cases were empty all along).

My original idea was to turn on an oscillating fan behind the cases, so it would blow them all off in sequence except the one that held the Invisible Deck. But I like the folding fan idea a little better. Mainly because I like the idea of the thing they assume is an “ordinary” wand, unfolding into a handheld fan. (Which seems like a prop that should already exist, but I did some searching and couldn’t find anything.)

Monday Mailbag #46

I know that you prefer performing for people one-on-one or for just a couple of people, but I was wondering if you had any thoughts about performing for small groups of friends (5 or so)? I am much more likely to be in a situation to perform magic for friends in these smaller groups than with just one or two. Excepting my wife, who at this point is more like performing for another magician (although I’m slowly training her to change her expectations as I have been changing my style closer to your suggestions).

If you are in a group of people and some have seen you perform before, but some have not, would you cater your performance specifically to the people who have seen you before or to someone who has not (e.g., something short and visual mainly involving a friend who hasn’t seen you perform)?

What sort of qualities do you look for in tricks for a handful of people? Do you lean towards tricks or presentations that directly involve more people (e.g., one person names a color, another the suit, another the value) or perform more or less the same as if you were performing one-on-one? —DW

Up until receiving this question, I never realized how little experience I have in this sort of situation. Primarily because I prefer performing one-on-one. And probably also because, for whatever reason, I don’t run into many situation where a few people have seen me perform and a few people haven’t. It usually skews heavily one way or the other.

But if I’m at a small dinner party or game night with three people who know me and two who don’t and I decide to perform something, this is my general thought process:

1. I would go for something mid-level weird. Like, for example, I wouldn’t go for something totally traditional, like a 4 Ace routine. And I wouldn’t go for something way out there, like a two-hour immersive time travel adventure. But I would sort of split the difference with something that takes a few minutes and has a mildly bizarre premise. “Oh, sure. I can show you something. Let me think… Well, I have been reading up the subject of ‘induced deja vu.’ This is kind of crazy….”

   I find you can push the envelope a little more in group settings, even when they include first-timers. If I’m performing one-on-one for you for the first time, and I start off with something too weird, then your guard is up and you might not be able to go along with the experience like I’d want you to. But if it’s the first time you’re seeing me perform and there is a group there who seems comfortable with me and what I’m showing them, then you’re going to trust their judgment.

2. I would gear my performance toward the new person or people. When your friends or family pimp you out to show something to someone who hasn’t seen you perform before, it’s because they want to watch that person’s reaction. So in the specific case where you have some newcomers and some old-timers, I would gear the material towards the newcomers and let the others enjoy splitting their focus between the trick and the person’s reaction.

As far as material goes, there are obviously some tricks that require.a group, and some tricks that are perhaps too subtle or intimate to be done any way other than one-on-one. Beyond that, I tend to keep the “sillier” stuff for groups, because the fun tends to build with more people there. And I keep stuff with a more intense emotional element for one-on-one performances, because if one person in a group doesn’t buy into it, it can ruin the atmosphere for everyone.

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I was reading your May 7 post on the false shuffle and this came to mind: In Annemann's book 'Shh It's a secret' there's an entry called 'the $1000 test card location'. Quickly described, you hand the stacked deck to them and innocently hurry them through a quick shuffle. Turn around, have them cut the deck, take and remember the top card, put the card anywhere in the deck. You turn back around, take back the deck, peek the bottom card, reveal their card per the stack. About 80% hit. If not, repeat and you will almost certainly hit. I can vouch for its effectiveness. —RC

Yup, that works. The issue with that in a casual situation is that there is no good way to “innocently hurry them through a quick shuffle.” In a formal performance it makes sense to move things along at a good clip. So handing the the deck to shuffle and quickly taking it back works fine. In a social situation it can be a little awkward. What’s the hurry? It’s just us here hanging out.

When it comes to things like shuffling or examining objects, people have their own internal metronome. And if you rush them, they can feel it. So rather than trying to force someone into your own pacing for the sake of a method, I find it’s better to make note of people’s predilections and then take advantage of them at a further date. If you notice when you give someone a deck to shuffle that they just give it a few overhand chops and hand it back, then you know you can utilize that Annemann technique without it feeling internally “off” to them.

Similarly, you’ll find people who examine objects rather cursorily and others who take a deep dive into the object. Once you know that about them, you can choose material that takes advantage of those proclivities.

There are many effects and methods that rely on a certain pacing. Whenever possible I try to save those effects for people who naturally interact at that pace.

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Just wanted to report my experience trying out Yento recently. I have never felt such an exciting atmosphere when sharing magic with people as this. It just felt different. Something truly magical. Thank you. I actually slightly messed up the trick itself, but IT DIDN'T MATTER. They were enthralled by the story and I am starting to see how much more powerful that can be than just busting out moves. I've attached a pic of my package and I look forward to trying out some more of your effects soon. —TC

Nicely done.

I receive a fairly consistent flow of emails from people relating their performance experiences of tricks I’ve created or presentational ideas I’ve suggested. I sometimes feel like I should post more of these emails because it might encourage people to try some of the odder ideas if they knew they were working for other people as well. At one time that was going to be a new series of posts, but I kind of abandoned the idea because it felt self-serving and self-promotional, and I’m sort of grossed out by that stuff. (Probably not a great trait to have if a portion of your livelihood depends on people supporting your work.)

That said, I always like seeing people’s Yento packages. Send me a picture of your package!!!

WAIT NO, FUCK…. THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!

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I’m going to end today’s mailbag with an email from Jonathan S. As a stupid person, I’m not sure I understood it 100%. And as the person whose creative work it comments on, I’m not sure it’s productive to spend too much time dissecting my own work to find out how “integral” or “Metamodern” it might be. But as a general way of thinking about the performance of magic, I think some of you who enjoy taking a more studied approach to this sort of thing might find it interesting.

Regarding your discussion of the differences between male magicians and female magicians I thought it might be valuable to offer up a framing we use in our transformative media classes, which emerges from work done by psychologist Carol Gilligan. She identifies the principles of Agency and Communion, which are masculine and feminine principles respectively (not necessarily male and female). Agency is about doing things: think about "guy" films in which (usually male) heroes take action to affect an outcome. Communion is about relationships between people, often seen in films thought of as "chick pics" which involve personal development of characters through interactions.

A work we think of as Integral will tend to combine Agency and Communion, characters taking action to affect an outcome but often in the service of a personal evolutionary arc which changes the way they relate to the world and other people. Game of Thrones, Source Code, the Lord of the Rings trilogy...these are examples of cinematic works that combine Agency and Communion throughout.

Although these are thought of as masculine and feminine qualities they don't necessarily line up with male and female characters or creators. Some men are into relationship fields and some women are more action-oriented. Nevertheless, they tend to follow gender lines, though on a continuum.

Where this principle applies to magic is that the field has been dominated by males, who generally think in terms of Agency: Do things, so other things happen. As women are entering into the magic space we are indeed seeing more communion in magic, more exploration of relationships and emotions, beauty and rhythm. I think women in general just tend to have this type of orientation more than men and I am quite thrilled to see it start filtering through the magic world.

When you see a female magician picking up the worst habits of male magicians, often it's because they are learning to privilege Agency (action, eye candy) over Communion (meaning, connection). My working theory is it's quite noticeable when women magicians "act like male magicians" because we intuitively tend to expect more emotional complexity from women. So my speculation is that the superficiality common to so much of magic seems even more pronounced when it's a female magician embodying those same bad habits.

I think what is now being referred to as "the Jerxian style," the kind of informal presentations you are pioneering, are much more communion-oriented than typical magical works, though still with sound Agency-type magic impacts. So you're also more Integral than most.

You're also Metamodern, in the academic sense of a new artistic phase after Postmodern. (The term has also been hijacked to mean the broader developmental phase also sometimes called Integral). In its academic usage Metamodern refers to a kind of oscillation between Modernism and Postmodernism, "sincere irony," a constant tension between absolute absurdity and deeply felt sincerity. In that usage, Jerxian magic is extremely Metamodern, and you're at your best when your presentations are not merely deconstructive and absurd but also reveal some deeper beauty, meaning or hint at almost existential depth.

If you have any desire to dive deeper into this subject the best book to read by far is Hanzi Freinacht's The Listening Society, which is metamodern itself (it's often hilarious and irreverent but also deeply purposeful and serious) and designed to help evolve the reader's consciousness so they can perceive greater breadth and depth. It's a very zeitgeisty book amongst people in the Integral and developmental metatheory communities.

“To unite the many struggles
of the exploited bodies of the poor
with the struggles of the lost,
suffering souls of the rich world.
And to expand that struggle
to sustainability across time and space.
And to expand that solidarity
to fathom the vast suffering
and multiplicity of perspectives
of the animal realm in its entirety.
And to deepen the struggle
until it is reborn as play.”

Thanks for reading, if you made it through this. Sorry for the long rant; I'm rather steeped in this world though I must admit the application of Integral thinking to magic is a pretty tough nut to crack. Carisa Hendrix has lectured a bit about the academic phase of Metamodernism (the "sincere irony" oscillation that runs from Coen Brothers to Wes Anderson to TV shows like Rick & Morty) but I don't know of anyone who's really thinking seriously about the evolutionary stage after Postmodern deconstruction and how magic can be used to help accelerate the societal transition.

I'm with Terrence McKenna: The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns.

Dustings #41

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Here’s something to think about for anyone considering creating a magic show for a theater setting.

Often a magic “show” is just a loose collection of tricks. I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s like seeing a musical artist. They can just perform a dozen songs. They don’t need to be thematically linked in any way. That’s perfectly enjoyable, and I think it’s perfectly enjoyable for a magic show too.

But sometimes performers feel the need to present something a little more cohesive. And there are a few ways this can be done.

Message-focused - Sometimes the show is tied together with a message. That message might be, “Stop Bullying” or “Jesus Is Lord.” Or it might be a message about how our minds can be deceived. Or something generic like “the power of wonder” or something like that. Or—most confusing of all to me—is a message like, “This show is about one thing: You can do anything you put your mind to!” Which is a fine message for any type of demonstration except the one where you’re faking stuff you can’t really do.

Character-focused - In recent years, people like Rob Zabrecky and Carisa Hendrix have found success building their performance around a unique character. Sure, most magicians would say they have a “character.” But if you made them break it down, their character is usually, “Guy pretending to be suave who puts bills in lemons.” The problem with doing something character-driven is that for the character to really register, it usually has to be pretty out there, like Rudy Coby or something like that. And not a lot of magicians can, or want to, do something that broad.

So if you’re looking for some way to present a cohesive stage magic show and you haven’t hit on any strong message or character you want to pursue, I would suggest looking into a premise-focused show. A premise-focused show would be one where the show would be performed in a different context besides just a magician on stage performing tricks. It would add another layer of theatricality on top of that. So, while I recommend stripping theatricality from social magic, I think a formal show benefits from more of it.

What would be an example of a premise-focused show?

I’ll give you three. Note, that in all of these you would be playing a “character.” But I wouldn’t call them character-focused because it’s not some quirk of the character that is interesting. It’s the premise that is interesting.

The Rehearsal - You come out on stage and tell people that you’ve left your corporate job and the rat race and you’ve decided to pursue a passion of yours and do some good in the world by becoming an anti-drug magician who does school shows. “Unfortunately, there’s a bit of a catch-22 here. Before I can do some school shows they want to see video of my show in action. But I can’t take a video if they won’t let me do a show. So for the next 40 minutes, it would be great if you guys could help me out and stand in for the 11-13 year old’s who will make up my target audience. Just to give these decision makers a feeling for what the show would be like.” So you’d have the magic show, but also the comedy of you shoe-horning in the anti-drug message, and interacting with your audience as if they’re pre-teens. “What’s your favorite subject in school? Do you have a little boyfriend?” What I love about this idea is the sheer layers of artificiality involved. You’re you, but you’re playing the part of a magician, who is rehearsing the role of a magician. And your audience is playing the part of an audience who is playing the role of a different audience. It’s bonkers. And I could see it being very fun to do. “I know these may look like ropes, but what I actually have here are three different lengths—one small, one medium, and one long—of doobie.”

The Wake - Here’s a kind of melancholy one. You play the part of a 70-year old man whose wife loved magic. And you had been planning to surprise her by learning magic so you could perform a show for her on your 50th wedding anniversary. But she passed away a few weeks before that could occur. And now, here at her wake, you’d like to show the mourners (i.e, the audience) the show you had planned for her. Too sad? I don’t know. I think it could be sort of depressing yet sweet.

HR 642 - This is an idea I think would be fun to perform. Even though I don’t intend to do any stage performing myself, this is the sort of thing I would do. I’d open up by explaining to people that House Resolution 642 has been debated in Washington D.C for years now and things have been at a stalemate. “Is magic an art? Isn’t magic an art? No subject has been more hotly debated in U.S. politics for the past five years.” Then I’d explain the big news to the crowd… the Supreme Court is in the audience for the show and at the end—based on my performance—they’re going to vote on whether magic is an art or not! [Yes, I know it’s not something the supreme court would decide. I just think it’s funnier if that’s the premise.]

This is a show that would allow me to swing between playing a cocky idiot one moment and then a nervous doofus the next when things aren’t working out. And it would be fun to perform some of the tricks with a pretentiously artsy theme to “prove” that magic is an art. “Is magic an art? Gee… I guess that’s not for me to say. But allow me to show you this next trick that’s representative of my childhood in West Virginia—son of a racist coal miner, and struggling with my sexuality. I have three lengths of rope…”

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Because of some older posts, I occasionally get asked for recommendations of where to learn origami.

I will give you two general recommendations.

First, I recommend the work of Jeremy Shafer. He has a lot of videos on youtube. But if you’re brand new to origami, I would probably start with his books instead. I find it easier to learn origami from books. Yes, occasionally you’ll get stuck on a fold and need to see it in action, in which case you’ll want to see a video. But that’s sort of the exception. The more common situation is that the video is going either too fast or too slow and it makes learning the piece annoying. So I recommend learning from print, and supplementing that with video when you get stuck.

What makes Jeremy’s work fun to study is that he often creates origami that does stuff. So it’s a little more fun to play around with than folding a turtle that just sits there.

Also there is sometimes a magic element to his work. Although they’re generally not the most mind-blowing tricks you’ve ever seen, they can still be mildly amusing to play around with.

For example…

Origami Floating House

Origami Switch Blade

Origami Balancing Eagle

The second recommendation I would give is to learn dollar bill origami (for those of you that have foldable paper money in your country). This is good for leaving a memorable tip. And it allows you to do some origami in a casual moment without carrying around any special paper, like a weirdo. (I mean, I guess some would say that money is the ultimate “special paper,” but you know what I’m saying.)

I like this book by Janessa Munt, although you should probably have the basics of origami down before you pick that book up. The pieces aren’t ridiculously hard, but they’re not for pure beginners either.

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Saw this add from TCC about a lecture featuring Michael Ammar.

A Michael Ammar lecture is always good. But Michael Ammar and CUM… yes, please!

(I know this is primarily a Michael Ammar lecture, but as a big fan of Chinese Underground Magician’s work, I hope we don’t just get a sprinkling of CUM. I hope we get a big load of CUM. I—for one—can never have enough.)

The Jerx Calamity Sentence

In 1961, during Richard Feynman’s first lecture teaching introductory physics at CalTech, he made the following remarks:

If—in some cataclysm—all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.

Now, I’ve already had one successful blog that disappeared into the ether 15 years ago. So there are no guarantees this one will always be here.

So today I want to focus on the Jerx Calamity Sentence. This is the one sentence that would allow you to reconstruct a lot of ideas from this blog if you were to work backwards from the central idea contained in the sentence. It’s a sentiment I’ve expressed before, but perhaps didn’t put all the weight on it that I should have.

And that sentence is this:

The experience of MAGIC is created by the gap between what the spectator knows to be true and what feels real to them in the moment.

For me this has been the most useful definition for a “magical experience” or the “the feeling of magic.”

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If we expand the calamity sentence slightly, we get these two concepts:

1. The feeling of magic is founded on disbelief. If what they believe is possible is in line with what they feel they’re experiencing, you don’t have magic.

2. You can increase the power of the magic experience by creating a greater gap between what they know is true and what seems real in the moment.

So this isn’t just a definition, it’s actionable.

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We can widen the gap in two ways:

1 - Making our premises more unbelievable.

and/or

2 - Making the experience feel more real.

Making the premise more unbelievable is sort of self-explanatory:

“I knew which hand held the coin by reading your body language.” Believable and possible. If you do it well enough that it feels real, they’re like to believe it is real. It may be impressive, but that’s not going to overwhelm someone with a feeling of magic.

“I can know which hand you put the coin in five times in a row because of my powers of ESP.” Less believable, but still mildly plausible. While it seems unlikely that someone could intuit which hand someone would place a coin in, it doesn’t have the ring of something absolutely impossible. The gap is there, but it doesn’t feel very profound.

“I knew which hand you’d put the coin in five times in a row because this is my 12th time living this day, and you always hide the coin in the same sequence.” This is unbelievable and impossible. But if you are able to build up the premise enough and support it in a way that it feels real—even if just briefly—then you’ll have that strong, otherworldly, magical moment.

Making the experience feel more real is done by:

A) Stripping away anything that feels false (other than the premise) or performative. So no heavy-handed patter; canned jokes; or unjustified, convoluted processes.

and

B) Adding elements to your presentation that reinforce the premise, beyond what is necessary for the performance. These are things I call “extra-presentational techniques,” (hooks, reps, imps, buy-ins, etc). These techniques make the experience feel emotionally more real to people because they go beyond what is necessary if what they were seeing was “just a trick.”

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Not every trick I do reaches the level of being truly “magical.” That’s a tough bar to clear. Often I fall short, but that doesn’t mean the trick wasn’t a fun or fascinating or exciting or unique or funny or intriguing or mystifying experience.

But when I do reach the goal of something that goes beyond fun and fooling to some level of “enchanting,” it’s because I’ve hit the sweet spot described in that sentence. The real magic feeling comes out of the harmony in the duet between their rational mind saying, “This isn’t real,” and their irrational mind saying, “Holy hell, this is happening!”