Until August…

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Jesus, the year is flying by. Is this something we all think every year? I guess it is. Or maybe there was a year when we were like. “Shit, it’s only April? Why am I getting out my Halloween decorations?” That never happens, does it? It’s always just faster and faster.

For supporters, you’ll receive the next newsletter August 1st. If you’re a family-level supporter and have an advertisement that you’d like included in that issue, try to get it to me by the 28th.

TCC Presents has a new release called The Faraday Pad, that has just been announced. If you want to spend $300 (to $500) to get your spectators to think, “I guess there’s a magnet in that special pad of his,” this is your opportunity. Does it produce some cool visuals? Yes. But I’m not sure who would be fooled by this. Have the people behind this never spoken to a lay person? Magnetism is one of the few methodologies they know of. When you bring out your own performing surface it’s almost laughably obvious. I don’t get it.

This is how you know this thing was maybe not designed with fooling normal laypeople in mind. In the ad copy on kickstarter it says:

We have hidden the device under an unbelievably ordinary-looking Close-up Pad.

Hmmm…. okay.

“At first I thought there might have been something funny about the surface the magician was performing on. But after looking more intently, his close-up pad is unbelievably ordinary looking.”

I have bad news for you… close-up pads aren’t ordinary looking (except to magicians). And this one doesn’t even look like the standard one magicians use.

Well, whatever. You spend your money how you like. I just think it’s bizarre—regardless of how cool it might look—to do something where the general method is so obvious to the spectator.

In regards to Monday’s post where I responded to a question about slowing down when performing, here are some other tips that came in:

Richard Osterlind shared his great way around this (I don't recall if it was from a lecture or a video release). He said he tries to do everything as silently as possible. And trying to do things silently automatically slows him down. I think it's a great mindset, because you can't readily answer the question "am I going too fast" but you can answer "am I being as quiet as I can?” —CC

A good way to slow down a routine is to say the patter out loud as you practise. Figure out the pace and the moves to go along with the patter so that when you do it in front of people, you can maintain a steady pace. Doing this can also help you re-establish your routine if it goes wrong. The problem to adopting this method is taking care not to be too wooden. —ML

I still like my suggestion, because it literally forces you to take your time in a way in which there’s no getting around. But I see the value in these suggestions too. (Although I’d never memorize patter, per se. But in practice you could set a timer for how long you think the trick should take, and then practice talking along with the trick at a pace that fills that time.)

A shoebox of floppy disks has been found and The Magic Cafe is back online. Go remind yourself why you didn’t like it.

Enjoy the rest of your July! Try to get in some dope summer nights before we’re all like, “Oh, I guess it’s December now.”


Salvage Yard - Ringhole

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Have you seen Ringhole yet? It’s a pretty vanish and an interesting reappearance, but the presentation he has for it (starting at 45 seconds in) is soooo dumb. Any thoughts on how you might present this? —AF

You’re correct. The presentation he offers here: “I have a packet of Skittles from another dimension and it has your ring in it,” is mind-bogglingly stupid. Why—in this other dimension—are rings in Skittles packets? I mean, it would be one thing if you could say, “I got this packet of Skittles from another dimension,” and you opened it up and 30 copies of their ring fell out. “In the other dimension Skittles is a jewelry brand. Jewelry is considered cheap and disposable. Candy, on the other hand, is cherished and highly valued. People propose with gumdrops.” I mean, that’s not good, but it at least gives their mind something to consider. Whereas, “These Skittles are from another dimension. That’s why your ring is in it,” just seems lazy.

The ad copy says:

Borrow a ring from a spectator and cause that ring to magically and visually disappear right at your fingertips, just like real magic. You explain that their ring actually went through the "Ringhole" into another dimension.

Like, come on, guys. What the fuck are you talking about.

The obvious presentation for this effect is probably the best. There’s already an inherent “story” with a ring appearing in a bag of candy. So you borrow the ring. Vanish it. Try to bring it back, but you can’t. “I’m sorry. It’s not coming back for some reason. That’s weird,” you say, as you pluck in the air, as if trying to pull the ring out from the ether. “Oh well. Fortunately it was a just a cheap trinket and nothing important. Let’s see… what’s next….”

When they’re like, “That was my wedding ring.”

You say, “Haha. Very funny. Wait… seriously? That hunk of shit? No. That can’t be. That’s the type of ring you get in a gumball machine or they give out free with a bag of peanut M&Ms or something. Actually… that reminds me… I just got this earlier today.”

And finish it off that way.

That’s not a presentation I love. But that—or something similar—is the presentation that would make sense with this effect.

Is there another more meaningful presentation to be found here? Maybe. But it’s difficult to create a “meaningful” presentation for an arbitrary trick. It makes much more sense to think of an interesting premise first and then imagine what type of trick you could do to demonstrate that premise.

Here’s how that would NOT look.

Hmmm… what’s an interesting premise? Oh! I know. How about traveling into other dimension? Okay… but how would I demonstrate that? Maybe… make a spectator’s ring vanish and reappear in a bag of Swedish Fish?

The Red-Red Shuffle aka The Scotland Shuffle

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Pete McCabe wrote:

The Simplex OOTW [Note: This trick was released to supporters in WWCV2] is fantastic. I always thought Galaxy was almost a great idea but not quite. Your fix with the wrong card solves the problem. Thanks for that too.

But I am on a one-man crusade to get people to stop recommending the Ireland red-black shuffle. It’s a terrible move, especially for amateurs who don’t practice continuously. Here’s one I worked out that’s much better.

Start by shuffling about a third of the deck freely. Then do the switch move where you drop everything left and pick up everything you’ve already shuffled. Now shuffle the rest of the cards freely.

This will mix the upper third of the deck only. Perfect for OOTW or any trick with a bottom half of the deck stack.

I disagree with Pete that the Red-Black Shuffle is terrible. Although it’s easy to do terribly. Due to the nature of the shuffle it’s very easy for people to be casual and loose at the beginning…then very careful as they—fip-fip-fip-fip-fip-fip—peel off cards singly…then again very casual at the end. This doesn’t look good, but it’s not that difficult to make it less obvious, in my experience.

That being said, I like the shuffle he suggests quite a bit and may end up using it in place of the Red-Black shuffle in the future. It’s a little more difficult than the Red-Black shuffle. But not too difficult. I can do it and I don’t consider myself particularly proficient with sleights.

Here it is after about 15 minutes of practice. It’s not perfect, and there are tells for someone who knows what to look for. But for the people I perform for, this will certainly pass as a standard shuffle.

Pete came up with this about 20 years ago, but it may be a case of reinvention. If so, let me know so I can properly credit it.

[A note on the naming: The standard Red-Black Shuffle will shuffle the red cards…and then the black cards (or however you have your deck separated). This is the Red-Red Shuffle because you just shuffle the Red cards (or whatever your top half is) then the red again. The deck ends up with the same top and bottom halves. The Red-Black Shuffle is also called the Ireland shuffle. Not after the country, but after Laurie Ireland who is often credited with it, even though Charles Jordan poorly described it first in 30 Card Mysteries in 1919. Pete McCabe is Irish, so I considered naming this, The Red-Red Shuffle aka The Ireland (The Country, Not The Last Name) Shuffle. But chose The Scotland Shuffle because the McCabes settled in Ireland from Scotland around 1350. Ultimately, I just wanted to keep the confusing naming convention in place.]

Mailbag #72: Mentalism for Strangers & Dealing With Nerves Speeding You Up

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In your monday mailbag 62, you spoke about approaching people using magic.

What are your ideas on approaching strangers to perform mentalism in social events or coffee shops? —JB

Short answer: I don't perform straight mentalism to actual "strangers" too often.

Long answer: Mentalism/mind-reading has the potential to turn people off or affect people in a way that you can’t always anticipate. This depends on what they’re bringing to the table and their understanding of this as “entertainment” vs this as some sort of “mind control” or something like that. I would want to feel them out a bit first before I go into mentalism.

The other issue is that straight mentalism is almost all “magician-centric,” it’s all about demonstrating your power. That’s an odd thing to do in most situations, but especially with strangers.

In general, if I had a trick I wanted to perform for someone I didn’t really know, and it had the potential to be interpreted as me affecting their mind or their thoughts or anything like that, I would reel that in a little bit.

I’d say something like, “Can I get your help with something? My friend showed me this interesting trick that sort of mimics mind reading and I’ve been wanting to try it out with someone I don’t know. “ So I’d frame the experience as “just a trick.”

Now, perhaps it goes over really well. If so, then I can probe a little bit with them and find out if maybe they’re interested in “something weirder.” But I wouldn’t come straight out with an “I’m going to read your mind,” type of presentation, outside of a more formal performance situation.

Do you have tip against being "nervous" when performing a trick.

I tend to hurry up (and actually "ruin" the effect).

Do you have any tips or book/article recommendations? —SD

I don't really have any tips for overcoming nerves, because I don't really have any nerves (at least not related to showing people magic tricks.)

I talked about nerves in these two posts:

https://www.thejerx.com/blog/2020/10/4/monday-mailbag-30

https://www.thejerx.com/blog/2021/11/7/monday-mailbag-57

But they might not address exactly your particular issue.

I also talk about "slowing down" briefly in this post

https://www.thejerx.com/blog/2021/7/11/wcxenokxys33dd44qa8v9t9emc9ec9

Here’s an idea… I’ve never tried it, but this is the type of thing I would try if I was struggling with nerves that were speeding me up.

I think you need to work on your internal metronome. So to practice that I would take a simple trick like the Invisible Deck or B’Wave or something like that. And then I would tell myself, “I’m going to show this to someone, but I won’t let myself get to the climax of the trick until 90 seconds in.” (Or two minutes, or whatever feels like a steady or even slow pace for you.)

You can literally just have your phone out and time it as you do it. You don’t need to tell people why. “Don’t worry about that. I’m just trying figure something out,” is all you need to say. If anything, it will add a little more mystery to what you’re showing them.

Then go through the trick. You will find yourself with two options. You can either force yourself to go at a leisurely pace. Or you can rush through and end up with 50 seconds of “dead time” at the end before you give yourself permission to reveal the climax. So you end up just sitting there waiting for the time to tick by and looking like a ding-dong. I would guess that having this time minimum as a focus will get you more comfortable with taking things at a slower pace. Eventually you won’t need this type of rule in place. But as a “training wheels” sort of exercise, I think it could help.

Speed kills reactions. It makes you seem uncomfortable, which will make the spectators uncomfortable. It also makes it seem like you’re apologizing for showing them the trick, “Just let me get this over with. Let me get you to the interesting part.” That is death when it comes to generating intrigue with people.

Dustings #69

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Heh-heh… 69.

The hypnosis themed trick at the bottom of this post (a variation on the Just For You trick) got a lot of positive feedback in my email. A few people were using it within a week and reporting that it went over very well.

David Regal has a somewhat new switching box (currently sold out, but expected to be back next month) that might work really well for this trick in smaller venues. (I’m not sure how many billets it can switch). The fact that it’s see-through makes it seem very innocent. This is likely what I would use for that portion of the effect.

One of my favorite things you've come up with is Opia.  I use the cards when I introduce tone in my classroom every year.  I discovered today that there is now a book called The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

I'm going to get it and put it in my classroom library where it can both function as a Hook and as something cool for the kids to check out. — James R.

Excellent idea. The book itself is inherently interesting. And the idea that you’re trying to learn to pick up such obscure feelings (rather than just “happiness” or “sadness”) is also fascinating.

While you could do some sort of book test handling to force the word. I would likely stick to the cards. These would be the “flash cards” of the concepts you’ve become semi-adept at picking up on, so far.

Ellusionist has a new kickstarter magic kit called, The Vanishing Headphones and the Lowest Quality Version of a Bunch of Tricks You Already Own.

Only 16 more days to hop on that if you’re interested.

Remember Zoom shows and Zoom lectures? Does anyone still do that garbage? Well, iOS 16 is going to have something pretty dope for anyone who might be able to use it. Scroll to 4:45 in this video and watch the section on the “continuity camera,” specifically pay attention to the part called “desk view.”

I’m sure professionals doing Zoom shows already have a good set-up for that. But for people like me who only occasionally show friends stuff virtually, this looks like it could be a cool feature.

Abraham Presley

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I have a really strong trick to talk about today. It has one significant drawback, which is why almost no one besides me will do it. But it’s worth talking about regardless.

The body of the trick isn’t something I came up with. But I’ve put together a few different pieces that work well together to give us a very strong trick, with a crazy Rep, and an impossible souvenir.

I’ll walk you through it.

Part 1 - The (Failed) Prediction

In Part 1, I borrow a bill from a spectator and say I’m going to make a prediction on it. I write something on it with a Sharpie and set the bill, writing-side down, on the table.

I tell my friend I have a list of 100 famous people on my phone. I say I’m going to predict which one they will randomly choose. And if I get it right, I get the dollar.

I ask them to name a number between 1 and 100

They name 13. It’s Abraham Lincoln.

I pause and look at what I wrote down.

Then I say, “Yup, I nailed it. It’s Abraham Lincoln without his hat or his beard, and with the word ‘Elvis’ written next to him.”

I turn over the bill and they see this:

“Let me make this a little clearer.”

I then draw a top hat and a beard on the picture. And cross out “Elvis.” So now it’s some weird George Washington, Elvis, Abraham Lincoln hybrid.

“Okay. That trick is a work in progress,” I say.

This phase uses DFB to force Lincoln.

Part 2 - The Materializing Bill

Part two is a single phase using Craig Petty’s Chop gimmick.

I highlighted this phase in the first issue of the Love Letters newsletter. For those who don’t have that, there is a phase where a dollar that’s been rolled into a ball disappears and “materializes” under an empty cup that’s overturned on the spectator’s hand. This is an incredible moment of magic. It’s too good to just be shoved in a long multi-phase, cup and ball type trick. I feel it gets lost in Craig’s full routine. It should be separated out. At least when performing socially. This is magic that they feel happening. And it’s quite difficult to come up with any explanation for what happened.

I’ve been doing this one phase on its own for a few months now.

Here’s how I use it in this situation…

A little while after the failed prediction (anywhere from 2 to 20 minutes—I do this trick at a cafe/bar/restaurant ) I will ask for their help with something else I’ve been working on.

I mention that I’ve been practicing something. “When it works it looks like something vanished and reappeared. But it’s more accurate to say it dematerializes and rematerializes.”

I take the bill from earlier and crumple it into a ball. I then do that phase from from Petty’s Chop where the bill disappears from my hand and appears under the cup in their hand. Supporters can read the details of my handling and tips for this effect in the first newsletter. But even if you don’t have access to it, you’ll figure something out that works, as far as how to do that moment as a stand-alone thing. It’s not that difficult.

This always gets a strong reaction.

The Rep

I give the bill back.

At some point, depending on the situation and how much they’re focused on the bill itself. They will either immediately say, “What the hell happened here?” Or it may take them longer to notice. It depends on when they uncrumple the bill and how much attention they’re paying to it.

Because, you see, when they eventually un-ball the bill and look at it, it looks like this.

I play this very low-key at this point.

“Oh damn. Yeah, that’s my bad. When the bill rematerializes, if you don’t have complete focus on it, it can get really screwed up. I still haven’t perfected some aspects of the trick. That’s why I wanted to try it out with you.”

This botched reappearance of the bill is one of those things I love that makes perfect sense, but only if you presuppose a world where a bill really could vanish and rematerialize. It’s not something that makes sense in the “It must have been sleight-of-hand” world. This is next-level weird.

Final Thoughts

At first, I thought of doing that thing where you fold their bill into quarters, switch it for the mis-made bill (which you can’t really tell is mis-made in the folded condition) then have them sign it, so they end up with a signed mis-made bill.

But I just don’t find that very convincing. Having them sign it when folded. And having their signature in one quarter of the mis-made bill is not that difficult to figure out if you work backwards. The ideal would be if they signed it across the bill and then when it was mis-made their signature was all jumbled up. But that’s not possible as far as I know.

Then I thought I would use a prediction effect as a “pseudo signature.” Making the bill apparently “unique.” And originally I was getting the prediction correct. But I realized that wasn’t the strongest way to do it. If I could somehow predict they would name Elvis. Then having a duplicate bill in this crazy condition with Elvis on it wouldn’t be that difficult. (I’ve already done the difficult thing: predicting which celebrity they’d choose.)

But what if I got the prediction wrong? Then I’d have this bill modified in such a way that included their “freely chosen” famous person. A person that is so obviously “freely chosen,” because if it wasn’t, I would have predicted it, of course! The psychology here is, I think, pretty strong. In the 1000s of hours I’ve spent coaxing method guesses out of spectators, they’ve never suggested something as devious as, “I bet he had a way to force me to choose Abraham Lincoln. And he purposefully got it wrong so he could mark the bill in a seemingly unique way that would appear innocent because it was a failure.” That’s a bit more complex than the type of solutions they come up with.

Now, I don’t ever say, “And obviously it’s the same bill because it has my modified prediction to look like your chosen person, Abe Lincoln.” I never mention anything like that. These are two separate things. One, a prediction that didn’t work. And one a vanish and reappearance of a bill that sort of worked, but got a little screwed up.

This leaves them with a pretty fascinating souvenir—the mis-made bill with the “unique” marking, now spread out across the bill.

The reason I said you probably won’t do this much is that mis-made bills cost like $8-$10 at least. But I feel it’s worth the investment.

Oh! The switch. I switch one balled up bill for the other using a shuttle pass or whatever feels right at the time, after the bill has materialized. You could likely work out a switch using the Chop gimmick, since it’s already in play. I just haven’t bothered doing that.

Simplex Out Of This World

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Here is an incredibly simple way to do Out of This World that is still very fooling. It uses any borrowed, shuffled deck and requires no real sleights.

There’s nothing clever here presentationally. I have a lot of different OOTW-esque effects that I do that are somewhat significant variations on the traditional OOTW theme. But this isn’t one of them. This is just an very easy way to do the traditional presentation.

Step 1: Take a well-mixed deck of cards (your own or borrowed). And give it a few overhand shuffles. When you’re done, spread the cards face-up in front of the participant and ask them to give the cards a look over for a few seconds. Then close the spread and hand them the deck face-up.

Step 2: Pull out your phone and open the timer app. Ask them to separate the deck into two piles, red cards and black cards. They are doing this face-up. You are going to time them as they do. Have them deal though the deck into two piles and then have them note how long it takes them to do this.

Step 3: Say something like, “38 seconds. Okay, that’s our baseline. That’s how long it took you to separate the cards.”

Step 4: Place one pile on top of the other and turn the deck face down. Give the deck multiple Red/Black Shuffles (also known as an Ireland Shuffle). The is a genuine overhand shuffle, but you run the cards singly near the middle of the deck. So all that happens is the top color becomes the bottom color after each shuffle. Do a few of these. As you do, say something like, “This is kind of an asshole thing to do since I just asked you to separate the cards, but I want to try that again in a slightly different way and see if you can beat your time.” The implication that you’re a bit of an “asshole” (or whatever word you want to use) because you’re shuffling the deck right after you had them separate the cards is going to reinforce the idea that the cards are actually being mixed. (Which they are, but not really.)

Step 5: Spread the cards toward you. Mumble, “They could be better mixed.” And give it another Red/Black shuffle. Again spread the cards toward you, make sure nothing got messed up during the shuffle. Say, “That’s good.” And close the spread.

Step 6: “This time you’re going to do the same thing. But you’re going to do it face-down. Don’t even bother thinking about the colors. Just deal the cards into two piles. Going by instinct. Keep them about equal. That’s all. I’m going to pause you part way through, so be prepared for that.”

Step 7: Have your friend deal the cards into two piles. Dealing on instinct. Time them again. Encourage them to go quickly and to try and deal faster than they did previously. This should be easy because they’re just dealing randomly.

Step 8: Once they’ve dealt about half the cards, tell them to stop and pause the timer. “I want to try something here. I want you to get this next card wrong. Whatever that means to you. So whichever pile you’re inclined to put it on, I want you to put it on the opposite one.” Let them make that decision and remember what pile they put it on.

Step 9: Re-start the timer and have them deal out the rest of the cards. Stop the timer when they’re done. 

Step 10: Point out that they separated the cards by color in however many seconds when they were looking at them. Now, when they weren’t looking at them it took them however many seconds less. 

Step 11: Pick up the pile that they dealt the card onto in step 8. And start dealing the cards face up in an arc, leading up to the second pile. All the cards will be the same color. “Somehow, just relying on instinct, you seem to have placed all the black cards in this pile.” 

Step 12: At some point, about halfway through, you will hit a card of the opposite color. It seems like something has gone wrong, because people don’t immediately remember step 8. “Ah… a red card. I know that seems like a mistake. But remember I asked you to deal a single card against your instinct halfway through? This is kind of like a ‘control’ in science. We get to see what would happen if you denied your instincts in that case. And if I had to guess…”

Step 13: Pick up the other pile (which is in the way of the arc you’re creating) and put it on top of the cards in your hand. Turn everything over and continue to spread all the cards along the arc you had started. When you’re done, break the spread at the divide between the halves. “Yes… just as I thought. The one card I made you move was the only mistake in the entire deck.”

This handling at the end is essentially Paul Harris’ Galaxy handling, but with one huge improvement. The problem with the handling in Paul’s effect is that the change in the process came out of the blue. It was completely unmotivated. You’re dealing cards face up, and then to “save time” or something, you put the halves together and spread them. It never felt right. At least not to me.

With this version the dealing of cards is already disrupted by the appearance of the opposite colored card. There is then a break in the dealing which is fully justified as you remind them that you asked them to make a single mistake. Then, because you want to quickly answer the unverbalized question, “Was this the only mistake?” You spread the rest of the cards to show that it was.

I also believe having the mistake show up in the middle of the face down packet, and then it remains as the one “mistake” in the face up packet at the end, add some continuity to that packet. We know the cards that comprise that packet have changed. But this one card in the middle of the face-down and face-up packet, suggests it’s the same grouping of cards.

As I mentioned, this is a pretty straightforward presentation. All the decisions I made when putting this together were to make it as simple as possible. There’s no set-up. There’s no false-shuffles (the shuffle is real, it just doesn’t do what the spectator thinks it does). There are no leader cards. You don’t have to count how many cards are dealt. You don’t have to reverse the piles. You can do it with an incomplete deck in any condition. 

It’s not my favorite OOTW presentation. But it’s the simplest, and a good one to have in your back pocket, because there’s so little to remember. 

If I was going to enhance the effect in some way it would be in the Imp I used to create their ability to separate the reds from the blacks. Perhaps you have them look at something unusual, or listen to something strange, or you apply some pressure to one of their chi meridians or something. Then, as a “control” during their dealing procedure, you remove the Imp for a period of time (which causes the “mistake” that is witnessed during the reveal).

The idea of letting the spectator set up OOTW for you is something I first explored in this post. You might not think the Red/Black shuffle is convincing enough to “destroy” the set-up in their mind. But it is. I’ve tested it overtly (specifically asking about the fairness of the shuffle) and covertly in the past. The procedure that makes the Red/Black shuffle work is not something people can unravel, unless they’ve paid close attention to the mechanics of an overhand shuffle at some point in their life, which most people haven’t. Of course you can add in more false shuffles if you’re so inclined, but then this wouldn’t be the easiest OOTW I know of.