So You Want To Do A Phony Magic Video For the Homeless

Here's a video of Murray Sawchuck called Homeless Veteran Gets Thanksgiving Surprise - MAGIC PRANK! Although that should probably be "Homeless" "Veteran" "Gets" "Thanksgiving" "Surprise" - "MAGIC" "PRANK!" Because I don't think any of those words are meant to be taken at face value.

Watch this...

There are a bunch of videos of magicians performing for the homeless on youtube. It's a way of giving a bland, uninspired performance some resonance. "He changed a $1 to a $100." Okay, so what? "And then he gave it to a homeless person." Alright, well that's something, at least. But the truth of the situation is, we just like to see people giving homeless people 100 bucks. The magic trick is secondary.

Here's how lazy magicians are. Henning Nelms says, "It's one thing to be able to make a ham sandwich appear out of the blue, but it's much more meaningful if someone says 'I'm hungry' and then you make the ham sandwich appear." (Or words to that effect.) So what do we do? Do we become masters of improvisation in order to deftly fulfill the wishes of those around us? Do we learn to anticipate people's unexpected desires so we can magically satisfy them? No. Magicians read that Henning Nelms quote and say, "Well, I guess I'll go do something for homeless people. They always want ham sandwiches."

Think of it like this. A woman spills a glass of water all down the front of her dress. You reach into the air and magically pluck out a small towel for her to dry off with. There's definitely something magical about that. But if you stand at the end of a waterslide and produce towels out of a seemingly empty box, that's not magic, that's just you performing a service industry task in a needlessly complicated way. Clearly you have some way to produce towels and so you went to a place that you knew towels would be needed. Big deal.

So the whole performing magic for the homeless thing is a little lame to me. It's about as unimaginative as you can get creatively. And just as a charitable exercise it's pretty corny. "Yoo-hoo! Look at me! I'm giving to the homeless! Better upload this to youtube!" 

Perhaps the only thing more hollow than that type of gesture is to fake that type of gesture like Murray does in the video above. 

Here are some things for Murray (and anyone else) to keep in mind when he wants to fake his next magic video for the homeless.

1. Homeless people don't walk around with empty shopping carts ready to be filled with groceries. That's what people use actual shopping carts for. Google "homeless shopping carts." That's what they look like. They're filled with shit. Sometimes literally.

2. Homeless people don't naturally know the blocking for your magic trick. There should be some sort of miscommunication or misunderstanding. I know you worked out the trick so that he would hand you the blanket and then turn around, step back so the blanket is between himself and the cart, wait for you to do your trick, then go remove the blanket -- but that's a little too polished. You choreographed the homeless guy like you would a stage assistant. 

3. Homeless people are usually dealing with some sort of psychological or substance abuse problem. I'm not making a judgment about that, I'm just pointing out the cause and effect relationship. Now, because of that, interactions with them don't often go super smoothly. The dialogue in this video bore no relationship to any interaction I've had with a homeless person. He should have flipped his shit when you took the blanket. "Hey man, I need that to fuck my old lady under!" At the very least I would expect to hear him offer to suck your dick or sell you a VCR. He should have been calling you the n-word or masturbating while singing the Kars-4-Kids jingle. Instead it was very clear that you said to him, "Just ask me for a dollar and say that you're canning and that you were in the marines and stuff like that." Because that is exactly what my man said. Without even a fucking coordinating conjunction to be seen.

"I was wondering if you could have a spare dollar today I'm canning I was a marine corp veteran."

That's the actual quote. Get this guy an improv class. He's not an actor so much as he is a macaw. 

And the soaring orchestral music while the guy shovels cheese doodles into his mouth is a little much. Speaking of that, why were you like, "This is for thanksgiving," and then you gave the guy a metric ton of cheese balls? That seemed a little odd. Historians now say the pilgrims and indians didn't even have cheese balls at the first thanksgiving. Just cool ranch Bugles.

Don't worry, Murray. It could have been worse. Your video could have been as transparently fake as this one. Oh wait, that's you too. (Love your patter here. "Do this, then this, this, this, then this." Why would you need magic to pick up the ladies when you have a silver tongue like that?)

Thanksgiving

Thanks to those who read this site and to those who spread the word about it to people who might be into it. Thanks to those of you who have pitched in to support the site in some way, especially those of you who pre-ordered the book. Thanks to the friends who have helped with the site and the friends I've made through the site. I would like to say you've changed the way I perceive magicians, but honestly when I look at you I do that really racist thing where I'm like, "He's one of the good ones." Make sure to take a moment to appreciate the positive things in your life. To do anything less would be like tossing a salad in your lap when you have plenty of empty counter space.

Have a great Thanksgiving for those of you in the U.S., and, well, a good Thursday for everyone else. See you in a couple days.

November Commercial

[Once a month I'll be annoying you with a commercial message for this site.]

First I would like to talk about not this site, but sites and projects that are similar to it. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the U.S., and I can't wait. (I make a mean cranberry sauce.) If there is a site out there that you're thankful for, or a band, or a youtube channel, or a podcast, or a performer of any sort, I'm recommending you reach out to them to see how you can best support them. I'm genuinely not talking about my site (although that would be nice), I'm talking about anybody who is producing content that you're thankful for. We're in a very transitional time for things like this. 10 years from now, this will just be seen as the accepted thing. Everyone will have a few specialty sites or podcasts that they donate $10 a month to and it will just be part of their entertainment budget. But now we're at a point in time where people under 30 all get this concept but may not have any disposable income, and people over 40 tend to look at things like blogs or youtube channels as hobbies or kid's stuff, so why should they be paying for it? 

I will tell you what I do. I put an item in my budget (I don't really have a budget, I just do this mentally) for $30 a month. Then I decide what my 3 favorite sites/performers/podcasts are and donate $10 a month to them. Of course, I support other content providers as well by buying the things they release or whatever, but this is what I do for the three entities that provide me the most joy on a regular basis. I don't just do it for them, I do it for my own peace of mind. Peace of mind in the sense that if the site I'm supporting does eventually shut down, I don't have to wonder if my contribution could have made a difference. (And when we're talking about very small enterprises (not something like NPR), a few donations a month one way or the other could very well be the deciding factor.)

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Speaking of donations. Those of you who ordered the book during the initial donation period in October, and those of you who support the site with a monthly donation via the "Support the Site" link above, should have received the first installment of my reviews/ideas/bullshit newsletter, X-Communication, in your email on Tuesday. If you haven't, make sure you check the email address that is associated with your paypal account (as that is the one I'd use unless you told me to use another), then check your spam maybe, then check yourself (before you wreck yourself), then contact me and we'll sort it out. 

It's just been a few hours, but the reviews of my reviews are already coming in. 

My review of these reviews of my reviews is 4 Stars. Great reviews reviews!

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November's Call to Action! - The holiday shopping season is coming up and the most painless way to support the site is to use the affiliate links to Amazon in the sidebar (there is now a link to Amazon UK as well). It's easy, you just click through that link to get to Amazon and order whatever you want just like you normally would. I'm surprised how seldom this is used by people. I mean, relative to something like buying the book which is a pretty big investment. You would think for every one person who bought the book, 20 would have used one of those links, but really it's almost the inverse. Only a few people have used those links. I bet it's because people want to have a more direct role in supporting the site, it's probably less fun to do it anonymously. I get that. You want the coffee guy to see you drop a dollar in the tip jar. But this doesn't even cost you anything, so perhaps people just forget. 

Let's come up with a simple mnemonic for when you're doing your shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and every other day of the year. Here's what you should think:

"I need to go to Amazon. Amazon. A maison. That means house in french. It's nice to have a house. When I lived in my college dorm I missed living in a house because one time I wanted to make a fried egg sandwich in the middle of the night and couldn't because I didn't have a kitchen. Is kitchen a german word? Let me look that up. Yup, it is. Or at least it's Latin and "Proto-Germanic," whatever that means. Germanic. Grrr... man...ick! That's what a talking dog would say after he licked some dude's a-hole. I bet if a dog wished to become human and it came true he would walk around for the first few days moving his arms in time with his legs, just because he's so used to having done that as a dog for so long. But eventually he'd figure it out. Figure it out. Figure 8 Out. One of my favorite songs on the album Figure 8 by Elliott Smith is Easy Way Out. What a heartbreaking song, but the harmonies are so pretty. I should buy that on vinyl. I know! I'll go to Amazon. Goddammit!!! My stupid mnemonic brought me right back to Amazon. Ok... how about this. Amazon. Amaz-ing. Magic is amazing. The Jerx is the best magic site online. I should go click through that link on his site before I go to Amazon." Bingo.

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This is the cranberry sauce recipe I use.

You take a cup of orange juice and cup of sugar and heat that up in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Then you dump in a bag of fresh cranberries (12 ounces). Then you just stir them around until the cranberries start popping like popcorn. Well, I mean, they make a popping noise. So you continue to stir and mash them with a fork for 15, 20, 30 minutes, whatever, until the cranberries are at the consistency you want. Then you're done. It will be pretty liquidy, but as it cools it will congeal. Add a little cinnamon and some orange zest if you like. Shablam!! You've got yourself some cranberry sauce. Tart but sweet and good hot or cold. (Like poontang, am I right guys? Hi-five!)

(Be on the look-out in the coming year for my new food blog where I compare everything to "poontang." It's called, "Shablam!!" (my patented catchphrase).)

Four Scoops of Vanilla

No one has been more critical of Criss Angel than I have been. His schtick is corny as hell. He looks like the Crypt Keeper after a shopping spree at Hot Topic. And the dark and brooding bullshit is equally tired. Whenever I see someone trying to come off as a real sinister badass, I always picture them on the toilet trying to push out a real difficult shit.

I've long been an advocate for people just presenting magic and being normal, approachable humans as well. A lot of magicians fight against that because they want to be perceived as having a real power. And if they had a real power, then they'd surely be some mysterious kook, right? I guess. But that's not my style.

So it's been heartening to see a movement in the past few years to a more natural style in magic performances. But have we gone a little too far in the other direction? I mean, let's take a look at some of the bigger names in magic on tv and the internet...

They seem to all have something in common. Hmmm... what could it be. I mean there's no doubt these guys represent the rich cultural tapestry you see in modern magic. It's really great to see such diversity. For instance, do you want a magician who is a young, pleasant, unthreatening, white, male with dark hair that is two and a half inches long? Or do you want to go crazy and get a magician who is a young, pleasant, unthreatening, white, male with dark hair that is three and three-quarters of an inch long? The choice is yours. 

I don't have any issues with these guys as individuals; I enjoy a lot of their work. It's just when you look at them as a group that this current crop of magicians and their magic can seem a little... monochromatic. In fact I sometimes have trouble keeping them straight in my mind. 

Which is why I thought it would be a true test to see if I could discern which one you were thinking of throughout the course of an interactive magic trick!

The GIF of the Magi: Move Bitch, Get Out the Way

As I mentioned in previous posts, I won't be writing up as many fully formed routines for the site because I'm saving them for the people who bought the book. But I still have plenty of half-baked ideas that may be of interest to people, and may, in fact, be more in their wheelhouse than my usual types of effects and presentations. I will be briefly describing these with some quick GIFs I made to illustrate things in a new feature called: The GIF of the Magi.

Move Bitch, Get Out the Way

The title of this trick comes from the Ludacris song that I enjoy singing while practicing the main sleight involved in this effect. Give it a go. Really hit the bitch part when you flick the card. You'll see.

This trick involves two things I like:

1. Cards being split into component cards. Like a deuce being split into two aces. I like it because it's a bizarre concept, but it has an internal logic to it. 
2. The concept/sleight -- and someone will have to help me as to where this originated -- where you use discarded cards to hide the extra card in a color change. It's a fun one to practice and the organic "black art" principle is an interesting thing to think about.

Set-up: Face-down from the the top down: red two, red ace, red ace, black ace, black ace, black two. Turn the bottom half of the deck face-up. Turn the entire deck over so your set up is face-up on the bottom of the deck.

Performance: Start dealing off the cards in a very messy pile, and ask your spectator to tell you when to stop.

When they do, draw attention to the pile and push the cards around a little with your right hand making some comment about how many you dealt while your left hand secretly flips the deck over. 

Say, "There's no way I could have any idea you'd have me deal this many cards, stopping at this one. [You pull off the top card of the deck, the red two, and hand it to him face down.] It could have been anything, a four, a king, but in this case it's a...?" While you're saying this, get a break under the top two cards.

He says, "Two," and at the same time you say, "Ace." Act confused, take the card back from him face-up onto the deck. Scratch the face of the card a little. Say, "It was suppose to be an ace. Maybe it got stuck to another one? That can happen. " Take of the top three cards as one, and flick the edge ("Move... bitch!") over the discards, secretly revolving the packet and splitting the 2 into two aces.

"Yeah, sometimes if two aces are next to each other, they get stuck and become a two. You know, depending on the weather and whatnot."

You now give the deck an in-the-hands false-cut that doesn't expose the reversed bottom half (or you can adjust the reversed half via a halfpass during your previous bullshitting). Say something like, "Since you found an ace, now it's my turn." Do a triple-turnover to show another two. (You can spread the cards to get a break before that.) When you're done you have a two face-up with two face-up aces underneath. (I spread the cards in the GIF below, but that's just to show the condition, you don't actually do that.)

Say, "Goddamn this humidity! It happened again."

You take the three cards as one. The action that follows will be more easily explained via the GIF. Essentially you want to make it look like you rip the 2 into two aces. You hold the card(s) as if you're going to tear it. Then you push the top card into your right hand and pull down the bottom cards with your left, in a tearing motion. Your right hand makes an upward motion to draw their eyes, while your left dumps the deuce on the discards.

Now you're clean and you have four aces with which to go into your least favorite four ace trick. 

The discard camouflage pile is a fun thing to mess around with. I think it works particularly well in casual performances. I first read about it in use as a straight color change, but I can't remember where.

But I've also used it to merge cards together in order to find a spectator's card.

Or -- if you can justify the flicking movement -- you can use it as part of a delayed change: changing the back of a card or having writing appear on it.

Gardyloo #1

Hey guys, what's your favorite song about fucking your lady on a hayride after your mom suggests that might be a fun activity?

Mine is probably this one:

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Dear Steve Brooks,

I think you accidentally deleted a thread about this site off the Magic Cafe. Joe Mckay wrote the embarrassingly complimentary post below in the Latest and Greatest section, but it doesn't seem to be there anymore. Any idea what could have happened? Maybe one of your staff members was a little over-zealous and thought you were so delicate that you couldn't withstand some gentle teasing (even though I haven't really mentioned you at all in months.) Maybe someone got mad that all the responses to the post were positive? I'm sure you didn't delete the thread. You're not that much of a puss. 

I say you put the thread back up as a gesture to people that there are no hard feelings between us and that you're perfectly capable of taking a joke. You don't need to censor things; you're not a baby. I mean, I'd happily post anything you wanted me to here, unedited and unannotated. I ain't scurred. Or, maybe I've got you all wrong, maybe you want our old antagonistic relationship back. If so, don't put that thread back and I'll take that as my cue. I'm a nice guy and I want to indulge you with whatever type of relationship you want. Frankly, for me, it's better to be viewed as the guy whose site you can't mention on the Cafe. You're just helping my brand. So don't do it for my sake. Do it for your sake. (Unless you think there's something flattering about being perceived as someone who deletes posts just because he doesn't like the subject matter.)

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I'm finalizing the first installment of X-Communication, the email newsletter that goes out to people who ordered the book during the initial donation period or who have signed up for a monthly donation here. The newsletter will consist of reviews and presentational ideas I have for (mostly) new products. There will be just a few reviews each month but that's because I really only want to write about things that I've performed for people, that have been performed for me, or that I've seen a friend perform live. 

The first installment is written and you should get it before Thanksgiving. I'm just trying to determine the best way to send it and present it; whether as a pdf, a normal email, or via some newsletter service. If any of you who will be receiving it have a preference, let me know. 

Originally I had planned to make it look like one of those xeroxed magic publications from the mid-80s. But I think I nailed the style a little too well, to the point where it's annoying to read. I'll probably go with something more straightforward when it comes time to actually send it out.

An Example of 3rd Wave Equivoque

My friend was showing me a Russian Roulette style effect where he held his hands over styrofoam cups and there was a nail or a knife or something under one of them. I was encouraging him to do the effect with one upright dildo in a series of brown paper bags that he would violently sit on with his bare bottom. "Just think of how many hits you'll get on youtube when you inevitably fuck the trick up!" I said, in the spirit of genial goodfellowship. Despite my encouragement to consider this Russian Poo-lette, he wasn't having it. [Edit: According to Denis Behr, this exact routine was done in a German magic competition in 2008. Germany, you sick fucks. Prior to this I've had no issue with anything you've done as a country. But this is taking things a little too far.]

He started with 6 or 7 cups but was now down to two. The cups had been mixed by a third party so neither of us knew where the knife was. Well, at least I didn't. He held his right hand over one cup and his left hand over another. I knew this last move was magician's choice. He would ask me to point to a hand and then he would take that as me eliminating that hand or me saying that's the one he should slam onto the cup.

But he didn't do that. Instead he said, "I'm going to slam down one of these hands. And you're going to make the decision as to which hand I do. So which hand is safe?" he asked. I perked up a little because this isn't where I thought he was going. 

"The left one," I said.

"My left hand? Or the one on your left side? I want to be very clear about this," he said. I was thrown again by this. I thought maybe he was going to try and take advantage of the left/right ambiguity.

"Your left hand," I said.

"My left hand is safe?" he said, raising the hand slowly. I again found this odd. The slow, deliberate way he was allowing me to make the choice. 

"You have one chance to change your mind," he said.

"Okay, your right hand is safe," I said, casually, because he seemed too content with me saying the left hand. 

"Okay, I hope you're correct," he said, raising his right hand and slamming it down on the cup. It was empty. He tipped the left-hand cup over to reveal the gleaming knife standing upright. "Thanks for changing your mind."

I was confused at first. I thought maybe he was using rubber knives or something that allowed me a free choice at the end. But he assured me it was equivoque. I didn't immediately get it. I did quite a bit of equivoque work, but it always felt very different -- done at a rapid pace and without clear choices being made. "We're going to do this by process of elimination. Point to a hand. Okay, that's your selection." Or, "We're going to do this by process of elimination. Point to a hand. Okay, that's eliminated." And then move on quickly. I was tripped up by the deliberate way in which he asked the question.

"Show me the other outcome," I said.

He held his left hand over the knife and his right hand over the empty cup.

"I'm going to slam down one of these hands. And you're going to make the decision as to which hand I do. So which hand is safe?" he said for a second time.

"The left hand," I said, as it rested above the upturned knife. 

"You're sure?" he asked, raising that hand slowly. 

"Yes," 

"Okay," he said, continuing to raise the hand away from the table and then in the same motion shift it behind his back. "You've decided the left hand should be safe. But this one," he said, motioning to his right hand, "is still in danger. That was your choice. I hope you're correct." And he slammed his hand down on the empty cup. 

For a moment I was still seduced by the cleanliness and freedom of the choice that I almost forgot how we got to that point. And then everything came into focus in regards to what he was doing and that is what set me on a path of working to make all my equivoque this strong.

I received a couple emails asking me to explain what I mean by 3rd Wave Equivoque. It will be explained in full in the upcoming book, but the example above was the first time I saw it in a performance. Or at least the first time I recognized it as something slightly different than standard equivoque. Here's what makes it different:

1. It can be done slowly.

2. The choices seem to have some value. Saying something is "safe" seems to be a statement that carries some meaning. Whereas, "Point to a hand," does not.

3. You can reiterate the choice and give them a chance to change their mind after they know the apparent ramifications of their choice. In this case he could ask me if I was sure that was the hand I wanted to be "safe." In traditional equivoque they can only change their mind before you tell them what their choice means. That's a huge difference.

4. And finally, what makes it so deceptive is that the two choices are not complementary to each other. When you say, "We're going to flip one of these two coins. Hand me one. Okay, we'll eliminate it." It's not that difficult to realize that, "We're going to flip one of these two coins. Hand me one. Okay, that's the one we'll flip," is a complementary phrase that could be used if the person gave you the other coin. This is especially true in a long series of equivoque where the person soon recognizes that the result of their choices isn't necessarily what they thought they would be.

In this case we're relying on the richness of what it means to designate a hand as "safe." 

It means there is no knife under that hand. 

That makes perfect sense.

It means that's not the hand you're going to slam down.

That too makes perfect sense. And neither phrase automatically suggests the other (as happens with complementary phrases.) 

To put it another way, both statements are logically true. "There is no knife under that hand, so that hand is safe." And, "You're not going to slam that hand on a cup, so that hand is safe." Either statement will be accepted 100% because they're 100% logical. "You turned that card face-down, so that's your selection," is not a logical sentence in the sense that the second part of the sentence doesn't necessarily follow from the first part.

I don't know if I'm over-explaining this or not explaining it enough.

I'm not claiming to have invented these types of equivoque questions. Many of the ones I use I have stolen from other, longer, equivoque routines. The problem I had with those routines is that they'll have one really strong phase that is almost always followed by more traditional equivoque options ("hand me," "turn over," "point to") that I think undermine the strength of the style I'm writing about here. In the book I give a couple more examples of this style, including a way to equivoque down to one card from an imaginary full deck with no unclear decisions made along the way. (And I teach this in a manner that I think is going to make you cream your jeans. I'm legitimately excited for you people who have ordered the book. I'm seriously going to ruin you for other magic books.)