Monday Mailbag #59

You’ve come up with a bunch of different terminology in your time writing this site (Imps, Reps, etc.). I think you need a word for a trick that magicians are really excited for but laymen care much less about. And for that I would go with “Cog.”

This is based on the Cognito App which all of my magic friends have been amazed by, but the laypeople I perform for have been underwhelmed by. It doesn’t get bad reactions, but it rarely gets great reactions for me either, except from other magicians. I’ve even had some laypeople suss out the general idea of the binary principle. Not down to the mathematics but the idea that knowing which photos they say yes to would allow you to know which card they’re thinking of.

Do you have any ideas on how to bring the focus off the phone when using the Cognito App? — LH

No, I don’t, I’m afraid. As I said when I originally talked about this app, the issue I see with it is that it requires a lot of energy to be focused on the phone. To pull that energy off the phone and make it about something real between the people taking part in the interaction… that’s going to be hard.

The issue with using the app to find out what someone is thinking is that it requires a lot of, “Is your card in this picture? Is it in this picture? Is it in this picture? Is it in this picture?” This is the dull, uninteresting part so people try to rush through it. Understandably. But if you rush through the dull, uninteresting part, you’re suggesting to the spectator that this is actually the important part (method wise). If it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t include it, because it’s dull and uninteresting.

So, counterintuitively, what you might want to try is to focus more time on this part of the process. By focusing more time on it, and adding some creative elements to it, you can make it feel like more of a theatrical necessity rather than a methodological necessity. I don’t know if that would work, but that’s what I would try.

Other that that, I will again say that there are likely to be very few really cohesive plots and premises that make a ton of sense with this app (and the process of looking through multiple photos). It’s probably a better use of your time to identify the two or three premises that work really well, rather than trying to use it to solve many magic problems. For example, is this ACAAN procedure using the app (which involves a meaningless, unrelated “observation test,” and a meaningless, unrelated “estimation test,” before getting to the ACAAN part) a step forward in ACAAN methodology? In my opinion, no. You can say, “Yes, but the spectator never has to name their card!” Okay, but they have to do a bunch of other junk you don’t have to do with other ACAANs. And I’m not sure the trade-off is worth it. That, I feel, is an example of using the app for the sake of the app, not because it really makes for a better trick.

Finally, on the subject of this app, supporter Jonathan FC wrote the following which I think might have some merit:

I think it could also be used with your transgressive anagram philosophy.

By this i mean, use the cognito procedure, like a failed attempt of mind reading. Ditch it. And then once you have the peek you can go for a more interesting presentation.

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Will you be buying your boy Josh’s new matching deck effect? If so, will you tell the story of his parents meeting as it was the story of your parents meeting? —AS

No, I won’t be getting that trick. I think it’s a great trick for certain performance situations, and I enjoy the story Josh tells with it. And I have no doubt a lot of people will get a lot out of it. My performance style is too casual for it. And my friends are the type who really want to prod the mystery to see if it’s completely airtight and they would definitely look at the spread of cards at the end to make sure everything was copacetic, and you can’t really have that. Plus I have my own deck matching effect I already do.

But if you are going to do the effect in a situation where people don’t know you, you can probably steal Josh’s story and not have to worry about not getting away with it.

If you don’t want to take that exact story, you can easily create something similar. All you need to do is come up with some arbitrary circumstances and plug those into the story. “If his shoelace hadn’t broke, he wouldn’t have had to stop at the store,” blah, blah. If you can’t plug in your own details that you create into that format, then you’re close to braindead. Go ahead and just steal the story of how Josh’s parents met, because your parents did have any kids that lived, apparently.

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Your post about how Mentalists reveal information was very timely. The previous week, at an Elder’s meeting, a performer did a routine with this type of finish, where you reveal what you have read in the person’s mind. And my comments to him were all about the reveal, and your post made the rounds and produced lots of good thinking. So thanks.

I remember when I worked on the staff of a Sitcom, we talked about beats. Basically this meant any moment where a character has any emotional reaction. Big or small, happy or sad, annoyed or pleased. Anything.

One main goal of reviewing the script this way was to make sure that we did not repeat a beat, unless it was to specifically set up something based on the repeat. But if character A displays some annoyance at something character B did, and they repeat it, it can not be the same annoyance. It has to be bigger, or the target has to be slightly different, but it has to be moving in some direction.

This was what I didn’t like about that performer’s presentation. He got a fact, then he got another one, then he got another one, until he was done. Each moment was impossible, but they were all exactly the same beat.

So I think the reveal has to have its own arc. It has to go somewhere.

I find thinking about “beats” like this is a useful way to improve these sections.

And not just in mentalism. How many ace assemblies or coins across routines have the exact same beat three times in a row? —PM

Yes, good points here.

I don’t mind too much if the “beats” are the same, so long as that’s done to set a pattern that is somehow broken in the climax of the trick. But yeah, usually it’s just, “This coin went from one hand to the other. Then this one did. And this one did. And also this one did. The end.”

However, for me, the even bigger sin—going back to the idea of mentalism reveals—is when there’s just a straight line between each reveal and the ending. It just makes for a dull story with no climax.

It would be like if you were watching a mystery movie or reading a mystery novel and halfway in the detective determines the killer is a man, then a little while later that the killer is in the same neighborhood, and then that the killer lives in the house next door. If that’s how the book progresses it’s not going to be very interesting at the end when he’s like, “And the killer is… the neighbor!” Like yeah, we know.

However if the detective remains silent throughout the book, or he appears to be grasping at straws, or if he’s clearly on the wrong path, then it becomes interesting when the pieces fall into place at the climax. That’s the approach I was recommending in that post.

Dustings #57

Remember when Ellusionist used to have big black Friday events and have a bunch of releases and give away wristbands so the bully’s at school would more easily be able to identify who to give wedgies to? What happened to that?

Now look how their black Friday email starts…

Gee, thanks, Ellusionist.

I like to imagine some guy reading this email and then shamefully putting away his phone that he’s been using while the family says grace before dinner. You know…. they’re right, he thinks. He stands up. “Honey, I’ve been… distant. But all that’s going to change. Today what I’m most thankful for is my family, and a little magic company that puts people over profits. A company whose wise words turned my heart from something that was as dark and cold as an Ellusionist Legacy V2 Black Tiger Deck into something as bright and incandescent as a Ellusionist Pyro Mini Fireshooter. Blessings to Ellusionist as well as all of you, my family and friends. Let’s do ninja.”

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This video is a good demonstration of bad misdirection. The misdirection “works” in the sense that it fools the other person in the moment, but when the “effect” happens, they understand they were misdirected. Now, I shouldn’t really call this bad misdirection. This is actually fine for routines that are about misdirection, e.g., card under glass or something like that.

This type of thing is what I call “misdirection of the eyes.” Misdirection of the eyes is good for generating surprise.

What this type of misdirection doesn’t work for is when you’re trying to create a longer-lasting magical moment. If you twirl your wand and people look at it and they look back to find a ball on the table. They don’t think, “That ball magically appeared!” They think, “Whoa there’s a ball!… hmm… Oh, I guess that’s why he was twirling the wand with the other hand.” They may not think that so plainly, but that’s kind of an inherent understanding. If the ball had magically appeared, the last thing you would have done was draw their attention away from where it was appearing.

The type of misdirection that I think works better for creating a more magical feeling is misdirection of the mind. You can find more about this concept in this post from four years ago.

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Here’s one way you could use the Name-List Victim framework from Wednesday’s post if you regularly visit casinos.

While at the casino you say, “Do you have $5 to invest in something interesting? I’ve been having recurring dreams for the past … I don’t know…. over two years. And in the dream I’m at the casino with a friend—a different friend each time I have the dream— and they put a $5 chip down on a number in roulette. It’s pretty much a nothing dream. Nothing really interesting happens—they don’t win or lose, I just see them bet. But then one time I was here with my ex and she put her money down on the same number I remembered her putting it on in my dream. I thought it was a coincidence. But then it happened with another friend. At least I think it did, I wasn’t keeping track of the dreams at that point, but I’m pretty sure he nailed the same number. So I started keeping track. I keep a list on my phone and update it after each time I have the dream. The dreams aren’t always accurate, but they’re way more accurate than they should be. I had a dream about you last month and we were here in this casino. Would you mind placing a $5 bet on any number? I want to see if it worked again. I’d pay for it myself, but it is almost never accurate if the person places the bet with my money.”

They place the bet, and while the wheel is still turning you, go to your notes app and show them that they indeed placed the bet on the same number at which their name appears.

Not only is this a decent trick, but imagine they win that bet. If you go to casinos often and do this trick enough, it’s bound to happen. How long before their memory of the trick is, “We went to the casino and he told me to put the bet on 15 and in the next spin I won!”

(You might want to openly dissuade them from picking 0/00, because there is no “zero” in a DFB list. Or you can just chance it.)

Name-List Victims

I received an email from supporter Philip S. recently describing a use for the DFB app. DFB is an app that allows you to force anything at a numbered spot on a list in your notes app. (If that’s not clear enough, look it up.)

Philip’s email started:

I came up with a use for DFB that has got some pretty nice reactions. It puts a few different Jerxian concepts to use, so I wanted to share it with you.

Philip has allowed me to share that trick with you today. There’s a part of this trick that I think makes it particularly interesting and intriguing to people. (The most “Jerxian” part of the trick, in my opinion.)

But before we get to that part I need to set the stage. Don’t give up on the idea before then.

The Basic Effect

This is not the interesting part. This is the effect in its most basic form.

You ask someone to think of a number between 1 and 100 (or some upper-limit lower than 100).

They name a number—16 for example—you open up a list on your phone of your friend’s names, and at 16 is the name of the person who named the number.

(It doesn’t have to be just your actual friends’ names. You can make up some names. If it was all your “real” friends the number would be capped at what… six or something? Like if you count your mom as a friend.)

So this is a fine trick. Not earth-shattering. Who knows, it might get a better response in its basic form than I imagine. But at the very least it would be fine.

The Presentation

Again, this isn’t the interesting part just yet. (Well, it’s as interesting as you make it.)

Rather than just asking for a “random” number, it’s going to be much more compelling if that number has some meaning to it. There’s really no limit to the ways you could do this.

Here was Philip’s original idea.

Start with some Imp that could make sense as a psych-force. You then ask them to close their eyes, and imagine they're at the top of spiral staircase, so they can't see how far down it goes. You then have them count the steps until they get to the bottom, then have them tell you the number of steps there were.

You then explain the concept of a psychological force, and that you've been practicing methods for doing it. You show them your notes app, where you have a note titled "Psych force practice". It's a numbered list of names […] And of course, their name is at the number they named.

I like that. The spiral staircase imagery works well with the concept of delving deep into their mind.

But again, it can really be any reason to have them name a number.

“I’ve become very good at guessing my friends’ least lucky numbers. And I had a flash of insight of what yours might be the other day. If you had to pick a least lucky number between 1 and 100, what would yours be?” And then you go on to open a list of “Friends’ least lucky numbers.” Or whatever.

So come up with some way to get a number that’s slightly more exciting than “think of a random number,” and you’re good to go.

The Exciting Part

Here’s the part I really like. Let me go back and reprint Philips description of his trick unedited this time.

You then explain the concept of a psychological force, and that you've been practicing methods for doing it. You show them your notes app, where you have a note titled "Psych force practice". It's a numbered list of names--some have green check marks next to them (indicating you succeeded for that number/person) and some have red X's (indicating you tried and failed that time), and others have question marks. And of course, their name is at the number they named, and you delete the '?' next to their name and replace it with a green box.

As I wrote back to Philip:

The addition of the check marks, Xs, and question marks really takes this to the next level of what would otherwise just be a good but unremarkable trick.

Since the implication is that you have certain numbers you think will work for certain people, it may make sense that many of the numbers say "none" or "blank" or "N/A" or something. And maybe some have more than one person's name.

As Philip responded in his email back to me, setting up the list in this way makes it look much more like some sort of legitimate practice log, than if it was just a list of 100 names.

I particularly love that moment in Philip’s ides where you change the person’s ❓to a ✅. That’s a perfect little cherry on top of the effect.

You see what we’re doing, yes? In the Jerx vernacular, this is a Rep. Something that happens after the climax of an effect that adds to the world the effect lives in.

This takes what would be a very concentrated magic moment and then bukkake’s it outwards over (apparently) a bunch of different people and places and times in the past and (presumably) the future. This is a list of people that have been involved, and there’s been successes and failures and others you have yet to get to. This isn’t just a one-time thing. (With most effects you would want them to feel like a one-time, special thing. But this effect is improved by making it feel like there is a history to it.) This is an on-going story of a magical phenomena that they are, at this point, passing through.

These are the sorts of things that I’ve found cause an effect to really worm its way into people’s minds. They don’t necessarily affect the intensity of the initial reaction. They affect the duration.

Compare this to, say, using DFB to force Superman and the 4 of Clubs, and then turning around your prediction to show Superman holding the 4 of Clubs. Okay. I’m sure that gets a fine initial response. “Neat! That’s Superman and the 4 of Clubs.” But there’s really just a thud to that type of effect. “Here’s a random image of random elements with no connection to anything else. From some random lists that no normal human would ever have on their phone.” It’s the sort of thing that’s going to be of limited staying power. And there’s nothing really wrong with that. A magic trick can just be a neat moment. But if you have more “Jerxian” aims with your tricks, you might want to consider a trick using this format.

Thanks to Philip S. for sending along the original idea to me and allowing me to share it with you.

Monday Mailbag #58

Re: Ring and Campfire Coin Vanish

Hey Andy, I enjoyed very much your presentation for a one coin vanish in this post. I only got to read it today, but funny enough, I commented to my friends Ive been doing a trick from Ben Earls book Inside out called "The Vanishing". It’s also a one coin vanish, and my magician friends commented that, to only vanish a coin without reappearing it, generates an "incompleted-ness" feeling in the spectators. That the spectator wants you to bring it back.

They agree with the opening scene from The Prestige: "....you wouldn’t clap yet...because making something disappear isn’t enough, you have to bring it back"

Also, on Ben Earls trick, even after the vanish there is still some patter left, and some of my friends say there shouldn’t be too much patter after the magical climax

What are your thoughts on those minimalist routines, and regarding still delivering presentation after the magical climax? —BM

I don’t know Ben’s trick, so I can’t comment on that specifically.

If you don’t have a particularly good premise, then I would agree that it makes sense to vanish an object and then make it reappear—to go full circle.

But, if you have a good premise, then the opposite is true. If you have a premise where vanishing the object makes sense in the first place, then bringing it back probably doesn’t make sense.

One of my most performed tricks, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, is to take a paper napkin, when I’m done eating, ball it up, and make it disappear. I do this somewhat absentmindedly, as if this is just something you would do if you could make stuff vanish. I’ve heard a lot of comments about that simple trick, but no one ever says, “Bring it back.” Because people understand why you’d make a napkin vanish.

With the Ring presentation of mine linked above, no one would expect for the coin to come back. That wouldn’t make sense.

Even if you just said to someone, “I’m trying to learn how to make a quarter disappear.” Then you made one vanish. And they asked you to bring it back and you said, “Oh, I don’t know how. I haven’t learned that part yet.” That would be more interesting than vanishing a coin and bringing it back. Because it suggests the coin is actually somehow gone.

So yes, if you have no solid premise, bring the object back. But if you have a premise that justifies vanishing something in the first place, it’s probably best to leave it where it is.

As far as whether there should be much patter after the climax, it depends really. If there’s patter after the climax it should have a different tone or be coming from a different angle than what preceded it. For example, looking back at that same ring/coin vanish story above, you wouldn’t put the vanish in the middle and then keep telling the story. The climax is what you’re building towards. Any talk that happens afterwards should be a reflection on that climax or should put a spin on what they just saw. What you don’t want to do is go back to the same points you were making leading up to the climax.

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I bought Xeno off of your recommendation and have really been enjoying it. What pairing method do you use? —DR

I use the swipe mode of pairing, and I do essentially the same thing every time. I take out my phone and tell them I’m going to bring up a website. That’s when I go to the Xeno app. Then I stop and say, “Actually, let’s use your phone.” My hand with my phone drops to my side. I tell them to go to the website and then I stand next to them and look at the site on their phone with them. While I do this I’m saying something and getting the information I need and swiping on my phone at my side. I then step away or have them go to the other side of the room or whatever in order to allow them to choose something in private.

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Regarding last Wednesday’s post, “medium”

I loved this post - there’s something really potent in the idea of interrogating whether there’s a  “vessel” that carries the magic… I guess previously I’d have been tempted to think of the medium as “performance”. But that’s performer-centric thinking. The idea that it’s more about an interaction that profoundly (or maybe persistently) causes someone to question belief is something I’m going to stick with.

On first reading I actually got a bit pedantic and thought, “is it belief”? I thought it was more accurate to think about “confidence in the trust you place on the senses”. I think great magic makes you snap out of automatic sense-making and fall back on a slower “system 2” intellectual interrogation.  But maybe that is about belief. I really like the image of that oscillation “between what they know to be true, and the crazy fantasy you’ve so carefully crafted”. I think we get that because it’s uncomfortable not to trust the senses. And when this is combined with our innate drive to “discover” there’s an impulse to question whether you missed something in the “magic” or miss things the rest of the time is nearly irreversible.

Thanks for the great post. —DR

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When I first read today’s “medium” post, I thought you were making a semantic argument that “belief” was the medium that was manipulated in magic. But after considering it for a while, I think you’ve offered one of the few practical ways to consider generating a real “magical” feeling in people. It’s not just about how fooled they are, it’s really about creating that shifting sense of belief.

I think an important piece of the puzzle which you didn’t quite get to is that having a story is the best way to engage their belief. If the trick is just “your bill is in my lemon,” you won’t have that push and pull dynamic with their belief because there is no “compelling fiction” to believe in.—ER

Yes. Thanks for the kind words about that post. It wasn’t intended to be a theoretical exercise… “What is the medium of magic?” 🤔 It was meant it to be an actionable idea for how we can create effects that feel“magical” and not just fooling. And I think the way to do that is by keeping their belief unbalanced. I’m testing a number of different ways to do this, many of which are extensions of other concepts I’ve written about here. If I have any breakthroughs in this area, I’m sure you’ll read about them somehwere.

The Rough Draft Framework

One of the most interesting ways you can present a trick to someone as an amateur is to break it up in stages over the course of a few different interactions. The idea is to “let people in” (but not really) on some “rough draft” (but not really) versions of the trick before you show them the real thing. In reality, the “rough draft” versions are just a way to extend what would otherwise be a quick trick into something hopefully more interesting. And to get the target spectator thinking in a direction other than the methodology that you’re actually using.

Here’s an example. Suppose you had a sleight-of-hand color-changing-ring effect, where one ring was secretly exchanged for a ring of a different color. That would likely be a very quick effect that would amount to a nice visual, and not too much more. And the idea that you likely just switched the ring would probably be the first thing they would consider.

We can change that around with a rough-draft style framework for the effect.

You would use this with someone you see regularly.

Encounter 1 - After you’ve performed another trick, or when the subject of magic comes up, you mention you’re trying to come up with a way to do a trick where a ring changes color—from black to gold (or whatever). This is said casually, you don’t make too big a deal about it at this stage. You can give more to the backstory regarding why you want to work on this trick, but the important point is simply that you bring it up.

Encounter 2 - “Remember I told you I was trying to come up with a method to make a ring change color? I’ve come up with a prototype for it.”

Here you now perform this color changing paper ring trick by origami-ist, Jeremy Shafer. The idea is that this is an early stage version that you’re hoping to shrink down to finger ring size. This is just a proof-of-concept.

This trick is kind of neat looking, but it’s not really strong enough to stand on its own. People will know that if they took a look at the paper ring, they’d know how the trick was done. Now, you could make up a whole routine around this and build in some switches to make it stronger, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m just talking about using this routine as a misdirect for a future effect.

So for our purposes you would end the effect by exposing the trick. This is not “meaninigless exposure” It’s purposeful exposure. But if you’re uncomfortable with it, that’s understandable. Don’t do this type of presentation.

Encounter 3 - You would mention you had your “prototype” professionally printed so it’s more durable (although it’s still in the prototype phase). And then demonstrate the color change again using the gimmick from Tenyo’s Honeycomb.

I’m not suggesting you do the whole effect, just show them the gimmick and some of the color changes you’re working on. Because they already understand the basic workings, the purpose of this is just to beat into their heads (subtly) the mechanics of how a ring shaped object changes color.

“The next step is to find someone who can forge a ring for me that has the same qualities as this… with the colors laid out in this manner.”

Encounter 4 - “Hey. I got that ring made. Check it out. From this angle it looks black, but from this other side, it looks gold.”

Here you do any sort of sleight-of-hand ring color change you want to do (I’ll post a simple one soon.). Then you slowly hand them the ring after the change (as if you’re still trying to maintain the correct angle), and as you do this, you ditch the extra ring while all the focus is on your other hand.

You see, if you just do a change of an object, there is heat almost immediately on your hands to see if there is something else hidden there. But because we’ve set up “how it works,” all their focus will be on the ring itself. You’ve shown them essentially the same trick and you’ve exposed the method in the past, so they are not (yet) looking for another layer of deception.

When they get the ring, they’ll turn it over in their hands looking for the opposite color. This is how they’ve been trained. You’ll want to have your hands out in front of you, innocently. Perhaps slightly adjusting the ring in their hands. So without saying anything, it’s clear you’re clean. By the time it dawns on them there’s nothing special about the ring, it’s too late for them to catch anything. The other ring has long been ditched. And it’s even too late for them to remember if there was any time for you to ditch anything, because their mind wasn’t focused on that until too late in the game.

At this point, the trick is over. But if you want, you can do something to “explain” why they’re not seeing what they expect to see with the ring. “Oh, yeah. Well, the two-sided color thing works better with the larger, flat-sided, paper rings I was using. Once I shrunk it down to ring size, it wasn’t nearly as effective. So I had to come up with another way to do the trick. Have you ever heard of the psychology of color expectation? There’s an experiment where they handed people a blue coke can, and later on they asked them what color the can was and they almost universally said red—because that’s the color people expect coke cans to be. Anyway, so I primed you by saying it was a black ring. But it was gold all along.” [Blah, blah, etc., etc.] “Next time we hang out, I’ll show you something cool with that color expectation thing.”

And the next time you’re together you show them something interesting with a color theme.

It’s these types of techniques that allow you to take a two second ring trick and expand it over time and weave it into other performances. This is the unique aspect of amateur magic. You don’t have to just build isolated moments of weirdness. You can build out an entire weird tapestry.

medium [ mee-dee-uhm ]

Fine Arts.

1. the material or technique with which an artist works

If magic is an art, what is the medium? It’s a question that I find fairly easy to answer with most any other artistic endeavor. In painting it’s… well, paint. Sculpture, maybe clay or something. In dance the medium is the movement of the human body.

A lot of people who perform magic are looking to generate belief. They want people to believe they can truly read their thoughts or move something with their mind or whatever the case may be.

But in my opinion, generating the strongest “magical” experience is not about getting people to believe something. Belief is not the goal. Belief is the medium that is manipulated to create magic.

If someone believes in mind-reading, and you perform a demonstration of mind-reading that they think is real, no magic has occurred, because no one’s belief has been agitated.

If someone doesn’t believe in psychokinesis, but you perform a demonstration that is so strong that it gets them to believe in it, then you have performed a very strong trick, but not really a strong “magical” moment. All you’ve done is flip them from non-belief to belief.

The strongest magical experiences I’ve been able to give people happen when their minds get pulled back and forth, between the fiction of the trick and what they know the reality must be. (Ideally this happens over and over.) Or when they’re momentarily in some hybrid state that exists where they feel both the reality and the fantasy simultaneously. It’s their belief that is getting stretched and squished, swirled and smeared.

If your goal is just to fool people or entertain them, they you don’t really need to worry about this. The purpose of this technique is for them to feel the very specific type of magical feeling that invokes a sense of enchantment and wonder. That type of magic feeling is the feeling of reality and fantasy being blurred. And the way to generate it is to use a clearly impossible premise and then to hack away at all potential answers, explanations, and alternative theories, so that the only option people have left is to vacillate between what they know to be true, and the crazy fantasy you’ve so carefully crafted. It’s in this state that their belief is most pliable, which can lead to truly magical seeming experiences.

The Premise Process

I’d like you to reconcile two ideas from separate questions in today’s post.[Mailbag #56].

The first question in that post talks about your “Photographic Absorption” premise.

Then in the next question/answer you talk about the mistakes people make with Audience-Centric magic and you say that one of the mistakes they make is that they choose a premise the audience cannot understand at all because it’s unrelated to any concept they understand. You use the question, “Is this a thing?” to ask if it’s a good premise. But “photographic absorption” isn’t a thing, so why would that be a good premise?

While I have you, what do you find to be the best way to come up with ideas for premises? If there is a process you use for that sort of thing.—BI

I see your point. The term “photographic absorption” is made up. But the concept that you can look at a photograph and have that affect your mental state is something that has a basis in reality. So we’re building on something people understand. The magical turn in that presentation is the idea that going through some process can affect not just your internal state, but external factors as well. While that doesn’t have a basis in reality, it is an extension of something that does. Which, to my mind, is a perfectly good type of premise.

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In the original “Is this a thing?” post, I said: “My favorite types of premises/presentations are unbelievable, interesting, and familiar.” And I talked about looking for these sorts of concepts that already exist in the world. Things like time travel, ESP, haunted objects, etc.

But it’s actually fairly easy to come up with premises that meet those criteria in regards to any subject, even if it’s not inherently strange in the first place.

Here are the steps:

1. First you start with a concept or an object.

2. Make some sort of statement about the parameters of how that concept/object operates.

3. Change one of those parameters to make the statement untrue.

4. Use the now untrue statement as a premise for an effect or presentation.

For example, let’s say we want to do a trick related to the concept of “memory.”

We start with a statement related to memory.

You can take certain supplements to help you better recall your memories.

Now we change one detail of that statement to make it untrue.

You can take certain supplements to help you better recall other people’s memories.

And we now have the premise for a trick.

By starting off with a sentence that rings true and only changing one thing, you end up with something that still feels familiar, because it’s very similar to something that’s well understood. This keeps you tethered to reality in a way that makes for what I feel is a good premise, rather than just asking, “Is this thing I’m going to do impossible?” By that metric you end up with shit like Milk to Lightbulb. “I’m going to vanish milk and make it reappear in this light bulb,” has no relation to anything at all. It feels like you’re doing it simply because you have a way to do it. And, of course, you are.

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You can use this process with anything. I look out of my window now and I see a tree with bright red autumn leaves. What’s a fundamentally true statement I can say about this? In autumn, all the leaves on the tree change color from green to red. Now by changing any single parameter, we’ve got a decent premise for a trick. If we change “autumn” we have a trick where you make the leaves change color in the spring. By changing “all” you have a trick where only one leaf changes color, or maybe one selected leaf doesn’t change color. By changing, “green” we have a trick where the leaves change to blue or something.

Let’s do it with something else. Theres a lamp on my desk. What’s a statement I can make about this lamp? The lamp lights up when it is plugged in and electricity flows into it. Okay, now we change one parameter of that statement. The lamp lights up when it’s not plugged in. That’s okay. But just negating your original statement is probably not the best way to go about this. Instead, maybe we change the parameters in this way: The lamp lights up when sexual energy is fed into the cord. So instead of plugging it in, two lovers sandwich the end of the power cord between their hands. That’s a premise that works for me. We’re substituting in something for the electricity. But it’s not completely arbitrary. “Sexual energy” makes sense as a power source, at least in a fantasy word. We just changed one parameter: the type of energy a lamp needs.

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Now, let’s talk about a bad premise:

The card changed from blue to red because it was embarrassed.

Someone might say, “I did what you said. I took the concept that embarrassment causes people to turn red, and I just changed one thing: I put ‘playing cards’ in place of people.”

Yeah, sorry, no. That doesn’t count. People feel embarrassment. Not playing cards. So you’re introducing an entirely new object as the subject of your premise. When you do that, you’re just making your trick a symbolic exercise.

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Now, of course what I’m talking about here is sort of an easy way to generate premises, because you’re not limited by any given trick. It’s just an idea generating process.

Look at something: There’s a pumpkin outside my window.

Make a true statement about pumpkins: Pumpkins decompose about a week from when you carve them.

Change one parameter of that statement and you’ll have a trick idea.

Maybe it’s a trick where pumpkins don’t decompose, they recompose. And every night you swap out the pumpkin on your neighbor’s porch with a similar one except the image that was carved into it is a little smaller than the previous night. As if it’s healing. (That would be more of a weird, benevolent prank than it would be a trick.)

Or maybe you change “about a week” to “about a minute” and the audiences watches as the pumpkin decomposes in real time in front of you. “That wasn’t a trick with the pumpkin. It was a trick with time. We’re all ten days older than we were just moments ago.”

This is, I think, a pretty satisfying way to generate trick ideas using a particular concept or object.

But unless you’re creating a themed show, or something like that, you probably don’t not need to create a premise first, and then build a trick from that. Instead you probably have a trick that already exists and you need to come up with some premise for it. That is, admittedly, much harder.

But just coming up with premises (without tricks) attached is the first step I use. I come up with subjects that I think are interesting. Then I use this process to generate premises based on that subject. Then I keep a list of those premises and read through them from time to time, alongside a list of tricks that I haven’t quite found a premise for yet, and I look for any potential connecting fiber between the two lists.

It’s not automatic, but it puts you in a position to get lucky occasionally and match up a premise you like with a trick you have. This beats the option of just hoping for a bolt of inspiration to strike and to just have the perfect premise pop into your head. Sometimes that does happen. But it’s not a very actionable way to approach the process.