Dustings #46

In Penn and Teller’s book, How to Play With Your Food, they introduced a game called, “The Parsley Game.” This game is played in a restaurant and involves trying to get the parsley garnish from your plate onto your friend’s without them noticing. I used to play this with people in high school whenever we went out to eat. Then, like 15 years ago, restaurants were like, “Remind us again why we bother putting parsley on plates?” And, with no suitable answer, parsley seemed to vanish from restaurant plates altogether.

Well, I have another game for you to play with your friends that restauranteurs can’t take away from. It’s called the Sexual Psychology Game. I got the idea from the “pick-up artist,” Mystery. Mystery was a guy whose answer to the question, “How do you meet women?” is, “Well, a big fuzzy hat don’t hurt!”

Watch the short video below of Mystery talking about his affinity for magic. Pay special attention to how he says, “sexual psychology” about halfway through. It is seriously corny.

Now, much like the Parsley Game involved slipping your parsley onto someone else’s plate without getting caught, the goal of the Sexual Psychology Game is to slip that phrase into conversation before your friend can stop you. The rules are that you have to insert it into a list and you have to give that beat pause that Mystery gives before he says it. If you get the phrase in before they can stop you, you win. If they anticipate you’re about to say it and they stop you or say it themselves during that pause, they win. Obviously this is a game that the other person has to know is happening, or it’s a little easy to win.

In practice, what it goes like is this. You’ll say something like, “I’m going to pick up some food for poker tonight. I’ll get pizza, chips, wings…sexual psychology,” and you cap off your win with Mystery’s knowing smirk.

If your friends pounce during the pause and stop you from saying the phrase, then they win. It’s especially fun if you have some money riding on it.

The game is sweeping the nation. Have fun.

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Pete McCabe sent me this M.C. Escher quote that goes along nicely with the subject of Hitches as discussed on this site recently.

The element of mystery to which he wants to call attention must be surrounded and veiled by perfectly ordinary everyday self-evidences that are recognizable to everyone. That environment, which is true to nature and acceptable to every superficial observer, is indispensable for causing the desired shock.
—M. C. Escher

The most evident example of this sort of thing is in regards to odd props. If you have some weird box with dragons on it that you slide a coin into in order to make it vanish, you may fool people, but you probably won’t capture their imaginations with that sort of mystery.

But a lot of people who are quite cognizant of the fact that we should ideally use everyday objects in our magic seem to have no problem using questionable logic, questionable actions, questionable (often meaningless) premises. And my point is simply that these things have the exact same effect as the questionable prop. They cause your audience to disconnect from the effect because they have to start excusing or overlooking things they’re seeing. At that completely undermines powerful magic.

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Here’s an idea for Penguin or Vanishing Inc or whoever wants to take it.

An In-House Gimmick Maker

For a certain segment of the magic-buying public, it’s very annoying to buy a trick and then find out you need to construct the gimmick as well. A lot of us don’t want to split cards or sew with that elastic thread and that sort of garbage.

So, what would be nice, is if I buy something from your company, I would have the added option of buying the completed gimmick (at the same time or at a later date). That would make me more inclined to buy the original product from your shop and it would be an additional revenue source.

And it should be a win-win for everyone involved, because a gimmick that might take me 60 minutes to construct poorly, might take a more crafty individual with practice at building that particular gimmick 20 minutes to build well.

And it’s not like you have to house these individuals in a sweatshop, cranking out floating matches and peeing in diapers because they don’t get bathroom breaks. They could work from home. They could pee in a diaper from home.

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I’ve received a few emails about the 50-Piece Interaction Toolkit from my last post. Most asking what other types of things I might consider adding to the toolkit. I don’t really know. The idea is simply just that you should keep a list of the type of information you want to have facility with. Not every example of that type of information, of course. But a little basic toolkit that you look over and update from time to time so that you’re never completely just relying on plucking something from your memory. The toolkit is there for when your memory fails you.

As far as what other types of information you might put in there, that’s going to depend on your interests. 5 short poems, 5 favorite quotes, 5 life hacks, 5 interesting facts, 5 obscure sexual positions, 5 bible verses, 5 simple songs on acoustic guitar, or whatever.

This isn’t a place for your true passions in life. If you’re a priest you’re not going to track 5 bible verses. If guitar is your primary hobby, you’ll probably know more than 5 songs.

What this is, is a mental “junk drawer” for the stuff that might come in handy, but for which you have no current system to organize and remember that information.

The 50-Piece Interaction Toolkit (A 100-Trick Repertoire Supplement)

About six years ago I was at a dinner party at my friend’s place in Brooklyn. One of the guests there was one of the most charming and interesting dudes I’ve ever met. No matter where the conversation went, it seemed like he had an interesting anecdote, fact, or recommendation to add. He didn’t make himself the center of attention, but whenever there was an ebb in the conversation he had something to contribute to keep it rolling.

A month or so later, I ran into him a second time, and again he impressed me with his conversational skills and his ability to have something to share that was relevant to whatever conversation was going on around him. I feel I’m pretty good in conversation, but my skill is more in the realm of the bullshitting, off-the-cuff conversational style. This guy had—I felt—more concrete contributions to give. And at one point I pulled him aside and complimented him on that and said, “I wish my mind worked like that. I wish I had such faculty with information.”

And then he pulled out his phone and said, “Let me show you something.” And he opened his Notes app and showed me some notes he had on his phone. One was titled, “Stories.” Another one, “Trivia.” Another one, “Recommendations.” He had a different list for all types of information he might use in conversation. “I don’t think many people just naturally remember all these sorts of things. And those that do are probably bad conversationalists in other ways,” he said.

This was kind of a revelation for me. I think at first it felt like cheating. “Hey, you only have all those things to share because you wrote them down and remembered them!” But I changed my tune pretty quickly. He wasn’t scripting his conversations. He was just making note of things he may want to share with others in the future, and he would regularly review those notes to keep them at the top of his mind. That immediately seemed like a much better system than mine which was:

1. Have something interesting happen to me.

2. Think, This will make a good story to share sometime.

3. Six hours later think, What was that interesting thing that happened earlier?

4. The next day forget anything interesting ever happened altogether.

So I came to accept that idea that tracking this sort of thing was in no way cheating. I’m not stealing other people’s stories or opinions, I’m just making note of mine so they’re not lost to the ether.

So now, in addition to my 100 Trick Repertoire, I keep something of a 50-Piece Interaction Toolkit. These are some stories, ideas, games, etc., that I have in the back of my mind, should I need them. Some are strictly conversational things. Others—due to my interests—are magic-related, or tangential to magic. I don’t unload a bunch of these in a single conversation. But making note of these things and reviewing them every now and then allows me to have much better access to them in the situations where they might be useful. I find they come in handy specifically when dealing with people I don’t have a ton in common with, often kids, or just other people with whom I’m not likely to get into a “deep” conversation.

Here are the things I try and keep a repository of:

5 Personal Anecdotes

I sometimes ask people for an interesting story from their life, and it’s kind of shocking how this can paralyze people. Even people who have led very interesting lives. They don’t have a single story that jumps to the front of their mind about something interesting that happened to them.

Now, for the most part, you’re going to want the personal anecdotes you share to flow naturally from the conversation. But having a few go-to stories can be helpful in certain situations.

5 Jokes

I’m not a big joke teller, in the sense of scripted jokes. And, in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who loves telling those types of jokes who is the sort of person you’d want to hear a joke from. But just as a human living on the planet earth, you should have a couple favorite jokes in your back-pocket to crack up kids or shock the elderly.

5 Stunts

Those sort of magic-adjacent things that kids or bored people enjoy like balancing forks on a coin on the edge of a glass or burbling a pea.

5 Magic Tricks to Teach

When people find out you do magic, they often want you to teach them a trick. It’s good to have a small handful of tricks with garbage secrets that you don’t mind sharing. One of my go-to tricks to teach people is the one below. It’s a good enough trick to fool them, the secret is mildly interesting, and simple enough for them to remember. But the secret doesn’t really ruin any other tricks in magic.

5 Bar Bets

I don’t actually usually do these in a bar, but goddamn do I hate the term, “Betchas.” So let’s just call them Bar Bets. Simple puzzles, games, and bets with everyday objects. You can find a bunch of these on youtube. Or go for Dan Harlan’s Mindboggler’s or Diamond Jim Tyler’s material if you want to take a deeper dive.

5 Favorites

It amazes me how bad people are at talking about the things they like. “I’m really into music,” they’ll say. “Cool,” I say. “What’s caught your ear recently?” Then they stammer and stutter around for a few minutes until they say, “Oh, yeah, one thing I sort of like is this new Shannon & The Clams album.”

I met a guy who was really into hot sauce the other day and I said, “Nice! I want to try your favorite, what do you recommend?” And he just froze up.

I used to be like this too. Just because—while I enjoy many things—I put no thought into how I might express what I’m enjoying to other people.

Be prepared to talk about the subjects you’re into.

This shouldn’t catch you off guard. You brought the damn subject up. Have something to say about it.

What I like to do is break it down this way. For any given subject I’m into, I’ll think of an all-time favorite, a current favorite, and something I’m looking forward to. And have a sentence or so to say about each.

So, being into music, I’m fully prepared to say a little something about an all-time favorite band, a current favorite band or album, and something I’m looking forward to.

I recommend also doing this for books, tv, and movies. Then you can add at least one other category so you have your five category favorites.

This format works pretty good for any interest. Are you into local cuisine? Well, think of your all-time favorite restaurant in town, a new one you’re really into, and something on the horizon you’re looking forward to.

5 Probing Questions

I don’t mean questions like, “What is the nature of love.” But more-so questions like, “Assuming you wouldn’t get seriously ill in either case, would you rather eat a 1/2 cup of your own shit, or drink four gallons of someone else’s urine?”

5 Tricks for Young Kids

In the past, someone might say to their 7-year-old, “This is Andy. And do you know what… he does magic!” And I would sort of brush aside what they were saying and try to get out of the situation. “Oh, no. Not really. I’m not that kind of magician. I don’t really do kid’s stuff.” What a total fucking turd I was. In my head I was like, “Bu-bu-but what if they see me do something for a kid and they don’t take my seriously!” Like, who cares, dork?

Now I’ll happily show a kid something. But I don’t bother pulling something from my regular repertoire. First, because something that good is usually not necessary for a kid. And second because I now consider it a good thing if I show someone’s kid a trick and the adults nearby underestimate what I can do based on it. That only makes what I may do for them in the future hit harder.

5 Pieces of Origami

I enjoy origami as a sort of meditative practice. I don’t retain a lot of the folds in my memory. But at any given time I’ll have five or so in my head that I can whip out for certain situations. I like to have two or three that are easy enough to teach, and then two or three that are impressive enough to make a nice little instant gift.

Bizarrely, one of the folds I’ve found people like learning the most (perhaps because I teach it to them in some circumstance where it comes in handy) is how to fold a paper cup.

5 Simple Games that Require No Special Apparatus

When you have some significant, unexpected time to kill, having a game you can play with just your words is generally appreciated by a fun crowd.

An example of such a game would be “What Am I Thinking” also known as “Mind Meld.” Two people say any random word/phrase they think of at the same time. Then they do it again, trying to find the word “between” the two words they named originally. They keep trying to find this “midpoint” word until they both say the same word at the same time.

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Now, the goal of keeping a list of such things (and your categories would likely be different than mine) is not so you can constantly be cramming them into conversation. It’s so you have easy mental access to them, should the situation call for it.

It’s important to have some level of mastery of normal conversation first. You don’t want to be seen as someone who is relying on gimmicks to interact with people. Ideally you’ll come across as a good conversationalist, but also someone who “has the right tool for the right moment” to bring a different flavor to an interaction when it’s needed.

Monday Mailbag #50

I really like the way you give words and concrete examples to concepts that were under-explored or only understood intuitively. Since looking at my presentations in terms of “Imps” and “Buy-Ins” and so on, I’ve felt a much better understanding of how to craft a presentation and tweak it to get certain results. With that in mind, I’d really like you to expand on your Hitch concept from [last Monday’s] post. I feel like this could be a very useful way to examine effects and help decide which ones are worth putting the effort in to learn. —CB

The “Hitch” concept is in its early stages. So this will be the sort of thing that you’ll likely see evolve on this site over time, hopefully becoming more actionable, if possible. It came about after many years of breaking down tricks with non-magicians after having them watch a performance live or on video.

In theory, magic tricks should be pretty easy to judge. Does it fool people? Yes or no. How impossible is the purported effect? Very? Somewhat? Not very? Okay, so now I just need a “very impossible” effect that fools people, right?

What I found is that there are a lot impossible effects that fool people, that those people don’t seem to care about one way or the other. And before you say, “It’s all about presentation!” that’s not really what I’m talking about. You can remove the element of presentation altogether and you still see the phenomenon.

In testing, when talking to people about why they didn’t rate a trick highly, the answers aren’t usually, “It didn’t fool me,” or, “It wasn’t impossible enough.” The answers are things like, “I just thought it was weird when…,” or, “I just thought there was something funny about the box…,” or, “I didn’t understand why we had to…,” or, “I was unclear about….” Their issues rarely focused on some definitive, make-or-break, flaw in the routine. Instead they were focused on the moments that brought them out of flow of the trick.

Hitches are the moments that feel questionable, strange, unclear, odd, or suspicious. Any time the spectator’s mind feels one of these things, it’s a Hitch. For the purposes of connecting with an audience, you want your trick to have as few of these moments as possible.

Hitches can be in the actions of a trick: “Why did I write it down only for him to tear it up?”
Hitches can be in the props used: “That’s not what a real key looks like.”
Hitches can be in the patter: “What does it even mean to be the ‘leader ace’?”
Hitches can be in the premise of the effect: “Why would he make my card appear on an Oreo unless he had some trick way of making my card appear on an Oreo?”

That’s not all. Anything that takes the spectator’s mind off the journey of the trick is a Hitch.

“Wait… did I see the coin in his hand?”
”What is that thing supposed to even be?”
”Why do I have to write it down?”
”Why is his hand in that position?”
”Why can’t I choose any city?”
”Wait, what happened? I was looking at his other hand.”
”What does he mean this is ‘the most ambitious card’ in the deck?”
”Why do I have to add all these numbers together?”

These are all Hitch examples. None of these questions suggest a trick is ruined, or that it won’t fool people. But just assume that every questionable moment decreases a tricks impact by a certain percentage. You can prove this to yourself by just trying to picture the opposite. Can you imagine a magic trick with no questionable moments that wouldn’t be very strong?

That being said, it’s not really a worthwhile goal to think, “I’ll only do tricks with no Hitches!” because there aren’t really a ton of them that exist But it’s a good goal to try to limit them as much as possible, especially if your goal is to get a trick that worms its way into their mind long-term.

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RE: CelebriKey (discussed in last Monday’s post)

Seems to me to be a lot of effort to make a trick that has such a small, unbelievable revelation. A trick where you have to peer closely at the end to understand it seems weak to me.

Why not have a box of Legos, put a handful into a container, have someone pick a superhero, and then shake the container? Dump out the Legos and they've formed into the superhero. —JH

Regarding your first point, I see where you’re coming from, but a small revelation isn’t necessarily a weak one (especially for a small audience). I’ve done a trick where the revelation was on a grain of rice, and that has gone over very well. But I do get what you mean, if the revelation is too small for the audience and they have to squint and say, “Oh yeah, that’s batman alright.” Then that is pretty weak. Which is probably why they chose to go with such an obvious molded Batman look on the end of the key. It makes the revelation a little more clear cut, but it also makes it a little confusing because it no longer looks like a key.

Regarding your second point, I think the question becomes “Why not” pretty much anything else. As I said in the original post, if you have a force of a superhero that can hold up to scrutiny, why would you use it to make that superhero appear on a key? (Unless, for some reason, the key was a component of the forcing procedure. Then you’d at least have a methodological reason for tying the two together.)

Toys, comic books, movies, video-games, a Diner Double Beef Batman Burger with Squeezy Cheesy Fries.

There are countless items with a more natural tie-in to Batman to use as a reveal. To play devil’s advocate, the people behind this trick would probably reply, “Yes, there are other options that make more sense, but how many of them can you carry around with you on your keyring?” (Well, a batman keychain for one.) But it’s a fair point, I just don’t see it as being a convincing enough argument to justify the trick.

If I had an excellent superhero force, my revelation would involve magically changing my underwear into Batman Underoos. Although it’s probably not a great idea for strolling work.

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Another email about the CelbriKey effect.

Subject: CocKey

They really missed a trick there. Same gimmick, make it morph to a dick. I could sell a million. Most of them to you, I suspect. —RO

Good idea. But then you really need to update your keyhole with one of these…

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Dear Jerxy: De-Transitioning

Dear Jerxy: You have often discussed how to transition a conversation into your performing some magic, but I’ve read less about the awkward problem of transitioning back. It seems prudent to have a “de-transition" already established for each trick. Otherwise, after you have drawn everyone’s attention to you, the conversation comes to an abrupt and awkward halt. Or worse, they get together and brainstorm about the trick and possibly solve it.

I’ve been discussing this with some magician friends and here are the basic techniques we have come up with.

1. Let people discuss the effect, while in response to questions one maintains the “unbelievable premise” in the Jerx mode of blurring the effect into the surrounding reality.

2. Take the lead in restarting the conversation; e.g., by having the effect “remind” you of something one of the other people in the group has experienced and asking them about that. (A list of techniques for this would be handy.)

3. Exit the stage temporarily: leave the room to get a drink or go to the restroom. By the time you return, the conversation will have changed.

4. Exit the stage completely: make the effect the last thing you do at that social gathering.

Do you have any other suggestions?

Signed,
The After-Magic-Peformance Approach X-aminer

Dear TAMPAX: This is a good subject for a question, but I don’t think I quite find myself in the situation you described that often, so I’m not sure I have a great answer for you.

But the question of what I do after a trick is a good one, and not one I’ve really considered too much until now. Here, I think, is the reason why I haven’t given it too much thought. It’s sort of like asking a centerfielder, “Where do you go when the ball is hit?” On one level, it’s an impossible question to answer specifically. He might run back towards the fence, he might run in, he might run to his left or he might run to his right. There’s no real way of knowing. The obvious answer is that he’s going to run to where the ball is hit.

When I’m showing someone a trick, and the trick comes to an end, I want to be like that centerfielder. I don’t want to have a plan for what I’m going to do. I want to be on the balls of my feet waiting to see where their reaction goes and then I go and meet them there.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. What do you do if you do a trick and it’s met with indifference? What if I show someone a trick and they say, “Oh, cool. Are you ready to go to the movie now?” In that case, I would say, “Sure, yeah, let’s get going.” If someone responds in a way that suggests what they saw didn’t matter to them, I’m not going to try and convince them that it should matter to them. I’ll just let the moment pass.

But I have to be honest, this almost never happens to me. And that’s not because I’m such a brilliant magician that everything I do garners an amazing reaction. It’s just because I don’t bother showing magic too often to people who haven’t shown a significant amount of enthusiasm for seeing magic.

I’ve turned the entire magician/spectator dynamic around. I never feel like I’m being judged. I feel like I’m judging their reactions to see if they’re the sort of person I want to show things to in the future. Are they a good dance partner for this type of interaction?

Sure, sometimes I’m testing out a trick or a concept and I’m looking for their “judgment” in regards to whatever I’m testing out. But outside of that, their reactions are best used by me to cultivate an audience of people who are into magic the way I want to do it.

So if I get an indifferent reaction, it’s almost always on the first trick they’ve ever seen from me. And in that case, it’s not such a big deal because it’s always something fairly quick and low stakes.

Okay, but let’s talk about “de-transitioning” in general. To do that I want to remind you of the understanding I have with the people I perform for. They know what they’re seeing is a trick that has been dressed up to be a bit more immersive. And they get that I’m playing around with a certain amount of reality and a lot of fantasy. They may not know quite where reality and fantasy meet. But they know that if I demonstrate something insane, the appropriate response isn’t spending the rest of the night screaming, “What the fuck!” and shitting themselves. The appropriate response is maybe a few minutes of afterglow and then moving on to whatever else your time together holds.

I would say there are three primary responses I get when showing someone a magic trick.

Amazed - This comes in the form of a gasp, or laughter, or cursing, or a dazed look, or hitting me, or whatever the case may be.

Engaged - With my friends who are more theatrical or comedic, or just friends with “sillier” personalities, they may feel the amazement of the trick and then re-engage with the premise. So if we’re doing a trick that involves a voodoo doll of their ex-boyfriend, they will usually feel that initial reaction of amazement and after a little while of that, they may click back over into the world of the presentation. So, for example, they may pick up the voodoo doll and start flicking it in the crotch or something because that’s in line with the premise that there is a real connection between this doll and someone they don’t like.

Skeptical - After the surprise of the climax of a trick, they may being to question things. “Is that a normal deck?” “Can I look at that coin?” And so on.

There are probably other reactions as well, but these are the primary ones. And usually a spectator’s reaction will be some mixture of the three.

Now, just like the centerfielder, my instinct is to move in the direction of their reaction. Because what these reactions have in common is that they will fade over time. So it’s not an issue of “transitioning” out of the trick. For me it’s an issue of riding along the wave of their reaction.

How I Handle Each Reaction

Here’s how I ride out each reaction type. I’ll start with the easiest ones to explain.

Skeptical - If the audience is questioning certain elements and wants to examine things or ask about certain details of the trick, then I just go along with it. I generally don’t bother with a trick unless the objects in play that might demand scrutiny are examinable. So I’m happy to indulge their skepticism when it exists. I don’t change the subject, I don’t move onto the next trick. I’ve found that one of the best ways to get people to be less “method focused” in future tricks, is to let them burn out on searching for a method during an earlier trick. If a person is ONLY ever skeptical, then it’s usually not someone I would show too much magic to.

Engaged - I join back in with them. If they flick the voodoo dolls crotch, I’ll take it from them and bite the crotch and shake it like a dog’s chew toy. Essentially I’ll play along as long as they’re leading me to continue doing so. That’s going to be a few minutes at most. They’re not going to be like, “Let’s pretend there’s a psychic ghost here all night!” But as long as they want to hit the ball towards me, I’ll hit it back.

Amazed (or shocked, mystified, awed, etc.) - If they’re just sitting there, taking it all in and processing it and responding very positively towards the sense of not knowing what just happened, then I think what you generally want to do is not get in the way of that. Let them sit with the feeling.

Here is a the strategy I use:

If the trick has a premise where I’m the one behind the incredible thing they just saw—like, for example, if I just read their mind in some way—then I will sort of lean back and distract myself with some simple Rep. I’ll tell you why I do this. I think one of the most awkward things is where you’re like, “I just read your mind. Now I’m going to focus my attention on you and your reaction. Give me the validation which I so crave.”

I don’t want to inject myself into their reaction. I want them to feel whatever they feel. So I might just lean back and rub my temples a little bit or clench and unclench my jaw. That way, when they look to me, they don’t see someone who’s like, “Huh? Huh? Whaddya think? Pretty cool, huh?” Nor am I ignoring the thing that just happened. Instead, I’m subtly reacting in a way that is consistent with the premise. So if they’re really amazed, they don’t look over and see someone who is seeking praise. And they don’t see someone who is ignoring what just occurred. Instead they see someone still in the world where the amazing thing happened which directs them back towards their reaction to the trick.

If the trick has a premise where I’m supposedly not behind what it is we just saw, then I will mirror their amazement. I will sit back and process what we both just saw. Then, as I sense their amazement starting to fade, I will be the one who gets skeptical. I will be the one who starts asking questions, but all my questions will be designed to reinforce the strength of the trick. “Wait… wait. Did you shuffle the deck? You did? Hmmm. And that’s just a normal deck? There’s nothing special about it? Okay… shit… I have no clue then.”

So that is how I would ride the reaction out and let the moment gently pass, as opposed to actively trying to “de-transition” to something else.

Now, to be fair, in everything I’ve written here, I’ve sort of ignored the part of your question that implies I’m performing for a group of people. And that’s because I just don’t try to do stuff that is very emotionally-resonant, or super immersive, or intensely personal with a group of more than a couple people (except in rare situations where the group has been highly curated by me). I just don’t think it’s possible with a group.

With one or two people I can craft an experience that feels very personal and unique to us. With a group, my goal is just to show them something interesting or entertaining. And that situation rarely ends awkwardly because I make it clear that this is jut for fun, I’m not here to impress anyone, and I choose material that would be very difficult for a group to unravel unless someone there had a background in magic.

In large social situations I’m almost never like, “Gather round, everyone! The magician is here! Me, that is. I’m the magician. Pay attention to me” No. In those situations, if I’m performing, then it means I pulled a person or two aside a couple of times over the course of the evening and showed them something. From those “performances,” more people may come to me over the course of the night because they heard about something I did. And I will show those people something. That’s usually how I perform in a “group” setting.

Because of the nature of they type of stuff I perform, there is rarely a sense that everyone should gather around and watch me “perform” as a group. It has happened, and I’ve had fun with it. But it hasn’t happened enough for me to come up with a plan for when it does. So I can’t really answer your question in the way it was originally expressed. But perhaps you can extrapolate how I do handle the post-trick period in my situation and find a way to apply some elements to your own situation.

A Critical Examination of the Films of Rob Stiff and Magic Makers: Part Two

Today we continue our deep dive into the filmography of Rob Stiff and his Magic Makers ads of the mid-2010s

The Automatic Deck

Plot: This film represents Stiff’s most ambitious work to date. As with many high-art films, I can’t say for certain I understand what’s going on.

It starts in what seems to the basement or backstage area of a theater where a bunch of magicians are gathered to perform beginner’s magic tricks for each other. It seems like maybe they are there hoping to get an opportunity to perform these tricks for the magician who is performing at this theater? Like maybe the headliner is looking for new material?

Well, our first twist comes when we find out the featured magician is a woman! (A woman magician? What will they think of next!) “Not what you were expecting?” she asks. But… I mean… why wouldn’t he be expecting her? He seems to be there to pitch her these tricks, right? Certainly he would have had some idea who was performing at this theater. Again, I’m very confused.

I think we’re supposed to assume she’s a bit of a bitch because she makes her little-person(al) assistant remove her gloves, which seems like more trouble than just taking them off yourself.

“You have two minutes,” she says. “Impress me.” Instead of taking that as an invitation to toss her up on the desk and rail her brains out, Rob Stiff instead decides to introduce her to Deland’s Automatic Deck. His trick amounts to cutting the deck in three piles and telling her the name of the top card. You know that thing everyone tells you not to do with a marked deck? Yeah, that’s the trick he does.

After this demonstration we cut to the female magician onstage rehearsing her new card trick. “Is this your card?” she asks. Clearly demonstrating the originality that garnered her a full theater show.

Then she is murdered.

Trick Rating - 1/5 This is a stripper deck that is also marked. If you’re looking for a deck that is obviously a marked deck, yet somehow also nearly impossible to read, I recommend this deck.

Film Rating - 4.5/5

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The Secret Hand

Plot: With “The Secret Hand,” Rob Stiff ventures into the horror genre, asking the terrifying question… “What would happen if the man in your life was both annoying and a gigantic pussy?”

The film opens on a date-night between T.J. and the unnamed woman in his life. First T.J. plays a “joke” by cutting a hole in the bottom of a popcorn bucket and making his hand pop out of the hole. Popcorn gets all over the place making a big mess. But honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if T.J. cut a hole in the bottom of popcorn buckets to insert much more unpleasant parts of his body. So his girlfriend probably got off easy here.

He then ruins their pizza for the sake of another “joke.” (Literally the same exact joke. T.J. isn’t super creative).

His girlfriend then plans her revenge and invites “Rob from the magic store” to help out. Their big plan? Make it look like a fake hand from the magic turned on the TV. This causes T.J. to run from the house.

Why T.J. is that scared is never explained. The opening scene shows us there are already three fake hands in the house. One on the popcorn bucket, one on the pizza box, and one on the kitchen counter. This goon bought at least three fake hands. So he shouldn’t be that surprised when one shows up on the couch later. And, honestly, of all the thing you could find in the grasp of a fake hand, a remote control is probably the least disconcerting.

In fact, I feel like just going into the living room and finding Rob Stiff there would be much scarier. And that very easily could have been the case because he made no effort to hide in the other room. He’s just sort of crouching in the shadows like a weirdo.

Trick Rating - 4.5/5 I don’t use this prop regularly. But it’s definitely a prop with a lot of potential (although not much of it is expressed in this video).

Film Rating - 4/5

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The Prediction

Plot: The Magician wanders into what I’m guessing is the lounge area of a rehab center where he encounters some of the actors from previous films. I don’t think these are the same characters we’ve seen before. But I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps there is a Magic Makers Cinematic Universe, that these characters inhabit, but if so I haven’t quite figured out how all the pieces fit together.

The Magician takes a seat at the table where he gets a request to perform a trick.

“Give me the deck,” the Magician says. “I don’t even have to touch the deck to do magic,” he says, as he holds the deck in his hands just after requesting the deck. That’s our man of mystery!

He then walks them through a trick so bland even the black guy at the table barely reacts to it. A trick so bland it’s actually deserving of the uninspired name, “The Prediction.”

Trick Rating - 2.5/5

Film Rating - 4.5/5

You may find that film rating a little high. At first it seems like there’s not much of a storyline here. It’s pretty much just a trick demo, and the trick itself barely has anything going for it beyond how incredibly average it is. It’s only upon rewatching this that film-scholars have put it all together and learned the Shyamalan style twist baked into Rob’s work.

At 24 seconds into the film, The Magician is waved over to the table with our other three characters.

Ask yourself this question… What type of person goes to meet with some people, walks into an otherwise empty room, stands there dully, six-feet away from them, and needs to be directed to the table by some guy saying, “Hey man, over here!”

Is it not the same sort of man who goes into a coffee-shop and dumps a dozen decks on the table?

And the type of man who demands his frosting be clumpy?

And the type of man who thinks a marked deck is just what a stage magician’s act is missing?

And the type of man who doesn’t know how hiding works?

You see? Has it come into focus yet?

Rob Stiff is not playing himself in these moves.

He’s not playing the part of a mysterious magician traveling from place to place.

He’s not the puppet master pulling the strings.

He’s a Forrest-Gump-style, goddamn moron, stumbling through these scenes and showing that even a grade-A dipshit can master Magic Makers product line. Rewatch the films with that realization in mind and everything falls into place.

Hitches

I received a few emails in recent days asking my opinion on this trick, CelibriKey.

I think there is interest in the effect because a good effect that you can carry around on your key-ring, is more valuable than just your average “good effect.” The convenience of having it on you at all times would make it much more appealing. Imagine if condoms required you to get them tailor-fit to your penis before you had sex with one on. No one would use condoms. It’s not that a latex barrier over your genitals is such a great solution, but the fact you can carry one around with you in your wallet makes it an attractive option. A convenient, everyday-carry magic option is similarly attractive (even if imperfect).

I don’t have a whole lot to say about CelibriKey, nor do I have a presentation I would use with it. I think it’s certainly possible to fool people with it. The reason why it’s not something I’ll buy and use is because it violates a new performing philosophy/concept I’ve been exploring recently. It hasn’t completely solidified in my mind yet so this post might not be 100% clear.

The philosophy is this:

The most compelling magic has the fewest mental Hitches for the spectator to deal with.

And by “Hitch” I mean anything that might come off as odd or unusual to the spectator. Any type of questionable action, premise, or prop.

I’ll explain with some examples…

No Hitches - I ask you if you can remember a favorite photo from your childhood. You tell me about a picture of you and your siblings jumping on the bed at your grandma’s house. I tell you to turn around, and behind you on the wall is a picture frame with that photo inside. That’s a very direct trick. And it’s a completely “hitchless” trick. Nothing needs to be explained or justified. You thought of a picture and that was on the wall in a frame (a frame on a wall being a perfectly logical place to find a picture).

One Hitch - You think of any playing card. I tell you turn around and on the wall behind you is a picture frame with that playing card inside.

There is a Hitch here. Why is the playing card in a picture frame? You may decide this is something that does or doesn’t need to be explained. You may think a framed card is an obvious presentational flourish that doesn’t need addressing. Or you may come up with a story about it. “My grandfather was the man who originally illustrated the back design for Bicycle playing cards. Most of us in the family have a framed card in our house in honor of him.” Now when that card turns out to be their thought-of card, or their signed-card, that “Hitch” has been justified. Almost as if you were foreshadowing what was to come.

Some Hitches need explanations. Some don’t. But by definition (since I made up the term), a Hitch is something that would make some sense to explain. It may not be necessary, but it makes sense. It makes sense why you would explain a framed card. It doesn’t make sense to explain framed photographs. “We put photographs in frames to protect them and to make for a nicer presentation!” Like, okay you goofy bitch, we get that. You don’t need to explain it.

Two Hitches - You ask someone to think of a playing card. Then you tell them to look on the wall behind them and they see that in a frame on the wall is their playing card. And that frame is made from an origami-folded cereal box.

Now we have the Hitch of a card being in a frame, and the Hitch of the frame being made out of a folded cereal box.

Now, method-wise, maybe the reason the card is in a frame is because the card can’t just be lying on the table, because you need to switch in the right card and the process of taking it from the frame allows you to do that. And the reason for the cereal box is that the folded frame creates the slot for you to insert the card and the stiffness of the cereal box is ideal. Or whatever.

My point being is that while you can understand the method might require these two Hitches, can you also see how kind of convoluted it feels to the audience even with just these two things to deal with? The effect, while still understandably impossible, is getting clunky.

You might argue, “Okay, but a cereal box picture frame is a pretty bizarre thing to deal with.”

No, not really. Let’s look at a One Hitch trick again.

One Hitch - I ask you to tell me about a photo from your youth. You tell me about a picture of you and your siblings jumping on the bed at your grandma’s house. I tell you to turn around, and behind you on the wall is a picture frame made of a folded cereal box with that photo inside.

See? We’ve gone back to one Hitch and that weird frame hardly seems like such an issue. Now it’s just a picture in a quirky frame, hanging on the wall. The one Hitch is much easier to overlook.

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Now, let’s go back to Celbrikey.

“You’re going to choose a super-hero and I’m going to make their profile appear on this key.”

That’s your first Hitch. Batman is appearing on the key not because it makes any sense, but because you’re set up to make a superhero appear on a key. If we regularly cut keys into silhouettes, that would be one thing, but we don’t.

Can you come up with a rationale for why you’re revealing their chosen superhero on a key? Sure. But then you have Hitch #2.

This is not what keys look like…

That’s what a magic prop looks like.

So you will at least have these three Hitches in the effect:

1. The premise: Why are you revealing a chosen superhero on a key?

2. The prop: Why does the key look like that?

3. The force: Why did I have to name a random number (or flip through a book) to choose a superhero? If such a basic superhero as Batman was on the table, why not just let me name any superhero?

Now, that doesn’t mean the trick won’t fool people, and it doesn’t mean they won’t be entertained. For this concept to be useful to you, it’s important to understand this: Hitches are a way to identify flaws in an effect beyond the typical ones we think of like, “This won’t work,” or, “This won’t fool people,” or, “This is boring.”

In my experience, Hitches tend to make a trick less affecting and less vital. When I have a trick with a good premise that fools the audience, but doesn’t seem to capture them, I start looking for Hitches. What are the questionable elements or actions of this trick? Usually what I find is that the trick has more than a couple Hitches and that’s what’s causing people not to connect with it.

If a trick has a lot of Hitches they are either going to be unaddressed (which can leave the spectator with a lot of questions) or, if you do try to address them all, the effect can feel kind of forced and unnatural, not effortless.

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Imagine this. I give you an uncut key and have you hold it in a fist. I then have you name any friend in town or local business. After that I squeeze your first gently with my hands. When you open your hand the key is now cut. We drive to the friend’s house you selected and the key opens the front door.

This, technically, is the exact same effect as CelebriKey. The magician physically alters a key held in the spectator’s hand based on a (supposedly) free selection. But I think you can see how this would likely hit much harder than a random superhero. From the moment the uncut key is introduced, every part of the trick naturally follows. It’s like a ball rolling down hill.

Of course, CelebriKey has the not-insignificant advantage of being a trick you could actually do. But you could do this too. No, not in a walk-around performance. But you could do it in a casual situation. You’d need to work out a key switch, and force a location which you could fairly easily do from a gimmicked address book or using a map or contact list on your phone. These processes might introduce their own Hitches, but I think you would find them much easier to navigate than the ones in CelibriKey. (Not all Hitches are created equal.)

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I just wanted to take this post to introduce the Hitch concept. I don’t want to sound like I’m shitting on this trick. I’m not. As I said, I think it will likely fool people and entertain people, I just don’t see it really connecting with people.

I like to imagine people describing the effect to a friend afterwards. What is the takeaway? “I chose Batman, and then he appeared on a key I examined!” Is that a story someone would pass on? And would the person they’re telling it to respond with anything other than, “Wait… what?”

When it comes down to it, CelibriKey is a reveal for a forced superhero. But one that has a couple inherent Hitches in it. It also presupposes you have a workable, fooling way to force a superhero. And if you have that, is having that hero appear on a key really what you would want to use it for?

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Dustings #45

After re-linking to an article I wrote for Vanishing Inc’s blog in Monday’s Post, I received a few emails essentially saying that one of my best analogies was over there on VI’s site. That can’t stand! So I’ve excised that part of the post and I’m putting it here for posterity. (I get the inside scoop from some VI guys. That place is losing money hand over fist. They might be around another three months at this rate, but I wouldn’t bet on that. Download any videos you have in your account, because they probably won’t be there long.)

The point of this analogy is to express the importance of giving your trick a context, especially for the amateur magician.

The reason many people feel card tricks are lame or boring is because so many of them are inherently meaningless. If people can't connect to what's happening—even if what they're seeing is impossible—then there's going to be a limited shelf-life as far as how long they will find that sort of interaction entertaining. If you found out your new roommate could legitimately make playing cards change and transpose and all of that, you would be fascinated the first night he showed you, but then, by night three when he said, "Do you want to watch me make playing cards change?" you'd say, "Uhmm... nahh...that's okay, buddy. I want to pick at this thing on my arm."

If you're a professional and you're continually cycling through new audiences, that doesn't matter that much. But I come from the perspective of someone performing for friends and family. I want to keep them engaged in the magic I show them over the course of months and years, ideally.

So let's go back to your new roommate. This time, instead of being a true wizard, he's just a guy who always has a funny or interesting story about his day to share with you. You would listen to that for the rest of your life.

Good stories never get boring, meaningless impossibilities do.

To beat this point home, I’m talking about interesting stories as contexts in which the tricks exist. I’m not talking about shitty “story patter.” Talking about a guy walking into a bar and his twin brother walking into a bar, then a black-haired lady, and a red-haired lady, and that sort of thing—that’s not an interesting story. That’s a meaningless story laid over a meaningless impossibility. That doesn’t really get us anywhere.

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I mentioned the new Ellusionist tattoos in last Friday’s post. If any of you idiots is willing to get this garbage tattooed on your chest, with your nipple as the sponge ball, I will use Jerx funds to pay for it.

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The “Wild Card” video from Wednesday’s post reminded me of my least favorite type of presentation. If your explanation for why something is happening is because a certain card is “the most powerful one in the deck,” you have told us absolutely nothing about what’s supposedly going on. You’ve just explained one vague concept, “this card does magical things,” by renaming the phenomenon: “this card is the most powerful one.”

“The most powerful card,” “the most magical card,” “the leader card,” these are all designations that a card would get because of some reason. Swapping out one designation for another doesn’t really tell us anything. And it just stalls the story.

It would be like if you wanted to write a story about a teacher and her “favorite student,” but you didn’t have much more to go on than that. So we start workshopping the idea and I ask you why this is her favorite student. And you say, “Because it’s the one she likes the most!” That doesn’t help. Those are both just designations. But if you give the reason for the designation, then we can build off that.

• “It’s her favorite student because he’s the kindest, and she was always bullied when she was a kid.”

• “It’s her favorite student because he’s very funny. And she used to have dreams of doing comedy when she was younger and he’s rekindling those dreams in her.”

• “It’s her favorite student because he’s the smartest, and he lifts the average test scores for her class right above the state-mandated minimum level. But now his family is moving out of state and she needs to take drastic actions to make sure that doesn’t happen. ”

The reason is the story.

And you might be saying, “Who gives a shit? It’s Wild Card.” That’s fair enough. It’s just a dumb packet trick. You don’t really expect anyone to care much about it one way or the other. I’m just trying to make a more general point that if you want to create a performance that can engage an audience beyond just the visual interest of the trick, then a good place to start is with a rationale for what’s happening that is not just a matter of semantics.

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I don’t usually ask for help with methods, but I’m stuck with something, so maybe you’ll have some suggestions.

I saw on reddit that this video of a guy not being able to open a bottle was the second most viewed video on the MLB’s youtube channel.

I’m trying to think of a way to make a bottle un-openable by a spectator, and then at a certain point (of my choosing) they can open it. Let me know if you have any ideas (other than switching the bottles completely).