Speed Kills

Today we're back to talking about the Carefree Philosophy when approaching magic.

This is related to yesterday's post where I talked about the issue with quick glances when peeking.

One of the basic tenets of this philosophy I'm working on is that speed is anti-carefree. In fact, I think speed is anti-magical.

Eliminating speed from your performances is one of the biggest levers you can pull to make things feel less like "tricks" and therefore, less dismissible.

Areas where speed kills magic:

Quick Glances - As discussed yesterday, this trait is almost a caricature of a suspicious individual. In casual performing situations, there is no excuse to be darting your eyes in different places. Even if they're not sure precisely what you're looking at or how you might be seeing something of importance, it comes off as sketchy and non-magical.

Quick Actions - "The coins are going to magically travel from one hand to another."

Okay, fine. But quick, awkward, jerky movements are completely incongruous with the notion that something magical is happening. We've come to accept these things because we've lost sight of the idea that we're supposed to be emulating doing something with no possible explanation. Real magic would never look like frantic hand movements.

I've gotten rid of anything in my repertoire that looks like sleight-of-hand. And quick, unusual movements are the tell-tale sign of that.

There's a huge difference between a trick that leaves someone thinking, "That was sleight-of-hand," and one that leaves them thinking, "It must have been sleight-of-hand, but I can't see how." And you get the latter by only doing sleight-based tricks that can be executed calmly and casually.

Quick Pacing - A quickly paced effect will often come off as:

1. Confusing or

2. Overly rehearsed

Both of these things kill the feeling of magic.

That's not to say you can't be hyped up with what you're showing them: "Holy shit! Check this out. Look, look, look." That's fine. Enthusiasm feels human. What I'm talking about is a quickly paced routine made up of several magic moments. That's going to come off as your little routine that you put together for the Boy Scouts or something. Not a true moment of mystery.

Rushed Decisions - "Name the first flower that comes to your mind when I snap my fingers. <SNAP> A rose? Amazingly, I have a rose for you right here."

There are magicians who do stuff like this and think it's fooling. It's not.

In fact, any selection procedure that feels rushed will always lead to the effect coming off as more trick than miracle. This is the issue with the Classic Force. Or rushed Equivoque procedures.

If I was trying to show you something amazing that worked with "any" thought of flower, chosen card, selected object, etc., the last thing I would do is rush you through that selection process, because that would completely undermine the demonstration.

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A misinterpretation of what I'm suggesting with the Carefree Philosophy is that you should just do easy tricks in a chill manner. That's not what it's about. It's about removing tightness and tension from your performances, so what they're seeing feels like this unreal moment that's living in a natural interaction, not "just a trick."

Speed is one of the big sources of tension that permeates magic. But it's also something that's pretty easy to identify and avoid. Unfortunately, there are a lot of tricks that rely on it, so it limits your options in some ways to eliminate them. But it’s worth it. My repertoire has only gotten stronger and more impossible seeming since I've worked to flush those tricks out.

What Your Creepiness Reveals About Peeking

I've been trying to express how to peek information for years now. But I think I've finally found the perfect analogy.

Ask a woman in your life; they will confirm this. Hell, we actually have women who go to magic conventions now; they'll confirm it too. In fact, they probably had to deal with this a bunch while at the last convention they went to.

Men think they can get away with this.

You can’t. They know.

You'd actually be better off just staring straight at her chest. "Oh my god, that necklace is incredible. What's the story behind that? It's so eye-catching!" (This works best if they’re actually wearing a necklace.)

This furtive glance nonsense isn't fooling anyone. There must be something in our genetic code that spots it immediately. In fact, the quicker you look, the more obvious it is. If I'm talking to someone and they stare off a little over my shoulder or something for an extended period of time, it can seem like they're processing what I'm saying. But if they quickly glance over my shoulder and back, then I know they're actively looking at something.

This is instinctual. But magicians act like they don't understand. "I'll do the Center Tear and look at the information real quickly while I tear it!" But everyone notices the quick glance at the paper. Rapid, darting eye movements grab our attention and are almost universally associated with shifty, suspicious activity. "Hmmm… good point," says the magician. "Oh, I know! I'll look at it really REALLY quickly!"

This is how fucking dumb we are.

I've already written the general rules of getting a peek here, so I won't reiterate them in this post.

But the thing to keep in mind is that the card, the drawing, or the piece of writing is a "hot" object. It's suspect. So if your peek is built on a quick glance (suspicious) towards a hot object (suspect), an audience will almost certainly see through that, even if they don't know precisely how you saw the information.

Next time you're crafting a peek, think of every woman rolling their eyes when you “quickly” glance at their cleavage and remember this post.

[Note: In order to make my points more accessible to the average magician, I will be rewriting every post from the past decade of this site using analogies based on how women are weirded out by your creepiness.]

A Revelation Pro-Tip

I received an email last week from a guy who used to help with the testing we were doing in the late 2010s. He reminded me of something we learned back then that you may find useful.

When we spread a deck for people and had them select a card, and then revealed that card on the back of the magician's shirt, almost everyone—when asked to explain how it might have been done—said the card was forced. (Not everyone used that word, but they expressed a similar idea, saying something like, "You made me pick that card.")

When we did a selection procedure that happened in the spectator's hands, we eliminated the "force”/”you made me pick it" explanation by about half. That's real progress.

But when we used a selection procedure that forced more than one card, the "force" explanation was almost fully eliminated. (Under 10%, from what I remember.)

Why?

My theory is this: for the non-magician, the idea of "forcing" a card is something you do mechanically during the selection of one card. That's their concept of forcing.

When they do a procedure that produces 2–5 cards, I don't think that jibes with their understanding of what a force is.

If I show you a card on the back of my shirt and it's the card you chose, the easy answer is that I made you pick that card.

But if I show you the back of my shirt and it has a poker hand on it, and it matches the five cards you just cut to, then "he made me pick those cards" is a much less easy answer. It's sort of its own impossibility.

Think of something like the Creepy Kid Card Revelation. If it was just a drawing of one card, then it's easy to wave off as, "He made me pick that card somehow." But when it's a string of four cards, the force explanation feels much less satisfying.

So that's the tip. When you have a revelation you like, ask yourself: Can I make it a reveal of multiple cards? If so, it's going to be much less easily dismissible.

(As for the type of procedure I'm talking about, think: "Gemini Twins," "Directed Verdict," "Shuffling Lesson," "Shuffle-Bored," etc.)

Mailbag #164

Is AI going to destroy magic? With AI now able to generate convincing photos, videos, voices, predictions, is there a point where technology just flattens the mystery out of magic? I see so many videos online where I don’t know if what I’m seeing is real or not. I don’t see how magic thrives in this environment—IS

AI will destroy some magic. It will destroy magic online. But that was already destroyed, really. We haven't had magic online for a few years. We have exposure videos. The performers have to expose the trick. If they don't, people will just say, "That's AI" or "That's video editing." So the internet is dead as a platform for actual magic, but it's kinda been that way for a while.

Television is similarly dead. Will we ever see a Copperfield-style magic special again? (And by a "Copperfield-style" show, I don't mean Epstein in the front row clapping vigorously, I mean a large-scale magic special with pre-recorded tricks and illusions.) I kind of doubt it. Maybe if it was broadcast live you could generate some excitement.

But for those of us performing socially, I think the advent of AI content only helps us.

Why?

Think of 2010 (for example). At that time, the internet was a tool to expand human connection. You could talk to your friends all around the world. You could meet new people. Discover new communities. When you watched a video on YouTube, you knew you were getting to know a real person somewhere out there.

As the internet becomes more inhuman AI slop, it's becoming less useful as a source for connection.

An interactive, cooperative, human experience (which is what social magic is at its best) therefore becomes more valuable. It offers a type of connection that is now less accessible to us than it was 10 years ago when the internet was pervasive, but still mostly human.

Will there be some people who will be fully happy watching AI videos and jacking off to their AI girlfriend? Yeah, sure. But those aren’t the people I want to perform for anyway. The people I want to perform for are the ones who are actively seeking out human interactions. And the more artificial the online world becomes, the more that group will appreciate the experiences we can offer.

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This is quite the take. —AS

If Yigal Mesika can sue Craig Petty, then you definitely have a case against Magicfish and the Genii Forum for this shit.—MW

[UPDATE: Looks like the content this question refers to has been scrubbed. But you can still follow along without the link.]

I'll save you a click. On the Genii Forum they're talking about Equivoque.

Someone linked to this post of mine as a style of Equivoque that they like.

Which garnered this response from "Magicfish."

Are we suppose to ignore the profane, vile allusion to explicit violent sexual self harm? Or is this part of what makes it your favourite? This - as well as his well documented other pedophilic, mysoginistic [sic], racist aggression have no place in entertaining the general public with magic. Shame on you for sharing it here.

What could he possibly be talking about? you ask.

Well, in the linked post on Equivoque, I talk about doing a Russian Roulette routine with one upright dildo in a series of paper bags that you plop your bare ass on one-by-one: Russian Poo-lette.

This is what he was referring to as "explicit violent sexual self harm."

So… wait… is he making a joke?

No, he's just a fucking imbecile trying to smear the site and reaching for whatever words feel dramatic enough.

You, dear reader, would probably hesitate before describing an obvious joke as a “vile allusion to explicit violent sexual self harm.” You might worry that anyone who actually read the post would conclude you lacked basic discernment. That’s because you have at least one functioning synapse in your brain.

To be clear, it doesn't seem like he has an issue if one were to put a spike through their hand. That's fine. But god forbid you put a dildo in your ass. That's SELF HARM. I'm guessing he would be shocked to learn millions of people "harm" themselves in this manner every day. And they manage to even derive some sick pleasure from it! I've heard of some people "harming" themselves in this way multiple times a night! Those poor tortured souls!

He follows this up by mentioning my "well documented other pedophilic, mysoginistic [sic], racist aggression."

Okay, sure.

Pedophilic? This one is almost refreshing. I’m more accustomed to criticism for spending too much time exposing pedophiles on this site. Is he suggesting I am one? Or that I’m too aggressive toward them? When an accusation is built entirely from bullshit, it’s hard to tell.

Mysoginistic [sic]? There are incels, like Magicfish, who have so little experience with women—and have such a distorted view of them—that they're completely incapable of understanding a fun, light-hearted, sexual relationship between adults. They fully don't understand flirting and banter. They don't have a healthy view of sex, so they see anything related to it as dirty and denigrating.

So if I write about a romantic encounter or hooking up with someone, the Magicfishes of the world assume there must have been something unseemly about it. They just don't have experiences with women where they didn’t feel unwanted or like the aggressor, so they can’t picture a playful interaction based on mutual attraction.

Similarly, if I parody a dumb chauvinist, he misses the parody. What we see as absurd, he sees as something uncomfortably close to his own worldview. So he lashes out thinking he’s a hero and not realizing he’s telling on himself for not recognizing the ridiculousness of what I’m saying.

It's okay. I don't expect a guy who removed the "gyn" from misogynist to have a great understanding of women.

Racist? This is where it fully collapses. You could say to yourself, "Well, Andy does occasionally talk shit about pedophiles. And I have read some posts where he talks about women." So you could maybe at least distort things I've said in your head to fit his interpretation. But the racist thing is pure invention.

To be fair, in my old blog I did go after racists. But I don't think he's distorting things I wrote 23 years ago. More likely, he simply added a third buzzword for dramatic symmetry.

That said, no, I won't be setting up a GoFundMe for my legal fees. Yes, it's blatant defamation. But whatever. It doesn’t really bother me.

As nice as it is when I hear of someone in magic that I respect who likes the site, I may like it even more when I hear about someone who doesn't like it and they turn out to be a total dullard.

In addition to not seeming super robust intellectually, he seems emotionally fragile too. "Shame on you for sharing it here." He says about someone sharing a link he willfully followed to a site he doesn’t like. Relax dude, it's going to be okay.

How could I, in good conscience, sue someone this delicate? I’d worry he might get overly distressed and commit some… self harm.

Dustings #141

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For those on The Juxe mailing list, the next mix will be coming this weekend (including my Album of the Year for 2025).

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Yigal Mesika’s top three most impressive tricks:

3. Electric Touch
2. Spider Pen
1. Making Craig Petty a sympathetic figure.

I don't know if Yigal Mesika is making a Legal Mistake-a (see what I did there?) or not. I don't know if Craig's video here constitutes slander or libel. Don't give a shit either. I do know that Yigal ends up looking like a bitch in this situation.

You need to get the courts involved? You can't win a battle of public opinion against Craig Petty?? Half of the magic community hates him. And the other half… also kind of hates him. If you’re in the right, there should be no issue winning this fight man-to-man. Resorting to legal action in this situation is a bad look.

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I’m not 100% convinced, but I’m fairly certain this trick doesn’t pass the Green Grass Test.

It just feels like it complicates the handling. And I’m not convinced the metaphor works as well with this version.

“Just like Bob and Therea here, these two cards are now sort-of one, misaligned, and a bit awkward.”

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Here’s a video from Chris G on how to handle the Damsel Cull Force when you’re in a situation where you can’t just spread the deck. For example, this would allow you to do it off a spectator’s outstretched hand.

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I got an email this morning that found it odd I hadn’t written about the Epstein list, “given your crusade against child molesters.”

I didn’t realize having an issue with magicians who were convicted of sex crimes was a “crusade” exactly. It seems like it’s the default position any normal human would have.

The implication was that maybe I was protecting Copperfield. He wrote:

“You have a daily magic blog and haven't mentioned this at all, as far as I can tell. The elephant in the room hasn't vanished.”

Let me set things straight for any other dunces who don’t get it...

Yes, I have a daily magic blog.

This blog isn’t called “Current Events In Magic: Your Source for Magic News.” I don’t give a shit about famous magicians. I don’t watch other magicians. I don’t even particularly like magic other than the very narrow scope in which I present it to the people in my life.

“Buh, buh, but you always post about magicians convicted of sex crimes!” Yes, I know. But not because I like to, or because it’s “newsworthy.” I do it because—unbelievably—no real magic organization tracks it. And I think there should be some record of these offenses online. Especially since a lot of these guys go right back into performing for children the moment they can. But it’s not a subject I’m looking for more opportunities to write about.

And now you’re asking me to cover something there are 436,000 results for online?

I don’t think you need me for this one; you’ve all got this covered. Congrats, you finally give a shit if the magician involved is famous enough.

A Message For Supporters

When I was thirteen, I was a freshman in high school, and I thought I would get myself a Rocky Raccoon and get really good at it and then I’d go out around town and girls would be so charmed by it that they wouldn’t be able to help but drag me to bed with them. 

I wasn’t exactly wrong. If I had gotten a Rocky Raccon and mastered it to the point where it really seemed alive, girls (and women) would have been charmed by it. Where I was mistaken was in thinking that this ability with a puppet would translate into an ounce of poontang. What did I know? I was a young idiot. No woman was going to be seduced by that. More likely I would have ended up like most young puppeters: sticking my dong in the puppet at some point.

As a young kid, I was interested in almost anything even tangentially related to magic: puppetry/ventriloquism, origami, juggling, shadow puppets, optical illusions. 

In my later teen years, my interest narrowed more towards "just" magic. But that was still a pretty broad  category. Certainly my interest was always on close-up magic, but I would spend time learning about escapology, stage illusions, card cheating sleights.

As the decades wore on my interests narrowed further to the point where now I pretty much only care about tricks that are performable in casual situations with a carefree vibe and without having to carry a bunch of shit with me. 

This is a big change from someone who used to contemplate building himself an Interlude illusion despite having no stage-performing aspirations.

I think I imagined I would just keep it in my living room.

The perhaps-obvious, perhaps-counterintuitive observation here is that the more I’ve narrowed my interests in magic: the more I perform, the greater number of tricks I’ve mastered, and the more impact I’ve had with magic on the people in my life.

Why do I mention this now? Because I feel my interests narrowing again and that may affect the types of things I cover in the Keepers monthly magazine.

Digging into the Zero Carry concept and pursuing the Carefree Philosophy has put me in a mindset of eliminating as many props and gimmicks as I can while still keeping a varied, robust repertoire.

I’m really leaning towards two opposite ends of the spectrum: Zero Carry tricks that I can do anywhere without carrying anything special, and Wonder Room tricks where the prop is on permanent display and is something that stands out as an unsual object, for performing when I’m at home.

The fantasy is that if you broke into my home, you would not find drawers and drawers full of secret magic props and gimmicks (like I have now). Instead you would find a small library of magic books, a couple different magic-related displays (one of decks with interesting backstories and one of unusual objects), and that’s it.

That’s the long-term goal. I don’t know if it’s fully achievable. But as an intermediary step, I’d like to limit my “secret” props and gimmicks to stuff that can fit in a shoebox, rather than filling up a large storage cabinet as it does now.

The rest of my repertoire will live in my head or be “housed” in an appropriate location.

So, as I said, this may affect the type of material I cover in Keepers. I’m going to be learning more towards magic that doesn’t require a special object to perform (unless that object can be seen as a display piece). I’ll probably be pulling more from books and videos as well.

I mention it because I know some people prefer when I review “stuff”—like individual tricks you can buy. They don’t mind having a storage bin full of magic. They like collecting physical tricks and objects. And if that’s you, you may feel like you’re getting less value from the monthly magazine and might not want to continue supporting, which is fully understandable. I just wanted to give you the heads-up that that’s the direction I’m feeling pulled in at the moment.

To be clear, this may entirely change as well. I don’t really plan each step along my journey with magic. I just sort of follow my whims. In fact, as I was writing the beginning of this post, I started thinking, “You know, I really should get a Rocky Raccoon. That looks fun.” So who knows. The magazine may fully be spring-puppet related in a few months.

Revelations Follow-Up

I was asked:

When I see products or tricks that have very specific forces built in (the jack of spades is holding the 3 of diamonds, the four of clubs hidden the Sharpie logo, and the like) I pull back.  Because of the magician's brain I am thinking it's just a force and the audience is going to think it is a force. OR even if they don't know that it is a force it feels less magical because it was preordained.

For example, I have no problem at all using a cross cut force. When I see another magician use that it doesn't cause the same response. I think that is because that is the method, where the reveal being etched in stone is effect and maybe(?) that is why I am bristling.

I'm not looking for convincing on the merit of any particular method or effect. Instead I'm asking how to manage this blind spot so I'm not missing out on something that creates a real sense of wonder for those I am performing for. —GM

The subject line of this email was: "How to get out of magician brain?"

The truth is, this is not "magician brain." This is just regular human brain.

We did focus-group testing of revelations back in 2018. Here's what our results were.

If you have a seemingly immutable revelation, then people are always going to assume the card was forced on them.

And if the force you used was a Riffle Force or a Classic Force or some other quick force that doesn't emphasize a genuine choice for the spectator, then that's all the trick is going to amount to in their head. "He must have made me pick the card that was embroidered on the back of his jacket."

The problem here isn't that they didn't believe the embroidering magically appeared on your jacket after they selected the card. They're never going to believe that.

Even if you spread an ungimmicked deck on the table face-up and let them select any card, they're still not going to think the embroidery popped into existence after their selection. They're still just going to think, "How did he make me pick this card?"

That's okay, because that's still a trick. There's still a mystery there.

The problem comes when you use a force they can easily brush off as a force (Slip Force, riffle, classic). If they don't have any conviction that their decisions made a difference along the way, then they will brush off the whole thing as a force.

You can't eradicate the idea of a force completely. You can't keep them from saying, "He must have made me choose that card." But with the right techniques, you can make them follow that thought with, "Wait… but how could he have made me choose that card?"

You can make “It must have been a force” an unsatisfyingly incomplete answer to what they saw.

Even then, as I said yesterday, I don't think Card Selection —> Card Revelation is that strong of a trick.

But if you're committed to doing one (or if you've invested in one of those props with the baked-in force), here's how to make it as strong as possible:

• Look for forces that involve genuine selections and free choices along the way.

• Consider Bi-Reveals

• Add trickery to the reveal itself. If I can show you the back of my jacket at the start of the trick and there's nothing on it, then you can't just brush off the whole thing as a simple force. Now we're approaching an actual strong trick (if still a kind of stupid one).