Spectator Interaction

This post is sort of related to last week’s post about acknowledging the reactions of your spectator and letting them affect you. That post was about making it clear to the spectator that you’re present and you’re tuned into them. And that what you’re doing is something you’re doing with them and for them, and not just AT them.

Today I’m going to discuss a similar topic about spectator interaction.

New magicians and bad magicians will have interactions that go like this.

Magician: Let me ask you a question, do you believe that objects can be haunted?

Spectator: I think so. I actually think the music box my grandma left me might be haunted.

Magician: I believe this deck is haunted. And I think I can prove it to you.

In other words, they ask a question, then ignore the answer and move on with their prepared statements.

The evolved magician asks the questions, listens to the answer, and follows up on it.

“Why do you think the music box is haunted?” “What did it do?” “Where is it now?” etc.

But what does the even more evolved magician do?

He doesn’t ask the question in the first place.

Here’s my logic on this…

The more bizarre, immersive, and unusual the trick you’re showing someone, the more you need to direct the interaction.

Why?

Because, the best chance we have of getting the other person to lose themselves in the experience is to frame our interaction as if it were real.

And when you’re showing someone something genuinely incredibe, you don’t split the focus with them.

If it were real you might say…

“This old guy on the subway yesterday grabbed my wrist and touched my forehead and said something to me in some language that I didn’t understand. It was maybe Eastern European or something. And I felt, like, a shock. And I think I might have blacked out for a bit. But if so it wasn’t long. And ever since then I’ve been having these… visions… I guess you’d call them. And I had one about you. And I just want to test something out because I’m a little freaked out about all of this.”

You wouldn’t say:

“This old guy on the subway yesterday grabbed my wrist and touched my forehead and said something to me in some language that I didn’t understand. Have you ever had a strange interaction with someone on the subway? Oh yeah? Tell me about it. Interesting! Okay, well the language this guy spoke was maybe Eastern European or something. Have you ever travelled there? Really? What was the best thing you ate on your trip? Ciorbă de Burtă? What’s that? Give me the recipe.”

Now, that’s not to say I don’t let my friends inject when I’m showing them a trick. I do a lot of magic that is hyper casual and conversational. If the premise of the trick is very personal or psychological or something, they will often carry a lot of the weight of the interaction.

But you have to let the nature of the trick dictate how much input they’re going to have. Asking them to carry a significant portion of the load when you’re doing something with a truly “out there” premise can be uncomfortable for people. And it “breaks the spell” you’re trying to cast. If you had something genuinely this crazy to show or tell people, you would be driving the interaction. And you wouldn’t be looking to them to give their input all along the way.

"Tell Me What I'm Thinking"

There seems to be a fear when performing mentalism that you’re going to get called out on the process you’re using to demonstrate this “skill.”

“How do I justify them writing down the word?”

“How do I justify having to put the word back in the wallet?”

“How do I justify them thinking of a word from a book.”

I think performers who are new to mentalism believe people are going to be like, “Okay, well if you can really read minds, then just tell me what I’m thinking. Without me writing anything down or looking at some cards or anything like that.”

Justifying the writing of something down is a subject I’ve broached before, so I’m not going to get into that again.

Instead, I want to talk about how I handle things in the (rare) situation that someone says, “Just tell me what I’m thinking,” or something along those lines.

First, let me say, that this doesn’t happen often. With the concern magicians seem to have, you might think it comes up a lot. It doesn’t. I can’t say why for sure. It’s not just people being nice. That’s not what I hear from laypeople when I break it down with them.

I think it’s just that people are not surprised that the magician or mindreader (or the faux-magician or mindreader) would have some sort of process involved in reading your mind.

Even in fiction, there aren’t many characters who are just able to read minds at any and all times, whenever they want. So there’s no need to fret because you can’t live up to that “pure” standard.

So yeah, it doesn’t come up that much in the first place.

But if it does? Here’s what I say. The conversation goes something like this….

Them: What if I just thought of something. Could you tell me what it is?

Me: Like something at random? Without seeing it in front of you or anything like that?

Them: Yeah, like if I just think of something, would you be able to tell me what I’m thinking of.

Me: Yeah. Maybe. If you think you can do it.

That’s the key phrase. I’m turning this around on them.

I then say something like…

“Most people need the visual cue to focus their mind in order to be able to project a thought. Unless they’re like hyper focused meditators or something. But if you think you can do it… yeah… I definitely want to try it.”

What then?

Well, then I try it with them.

“Okay, think of something. It will probably be easier for you if you go with something that you can picture in your head as an actual object. But do whatever feels right for you.”

Then I just do some cold-reading style best guesses. “It’s alive… or it was alive. No? Weird because I’m sensing some movement to this thing.”

A couple of times I’ve gotten close by just narrowing it down and guessing. But usually I’m just obviously wrong, and I bail on it.

“That’s okay. It can be super difficult, almost impossible, to be able to quiet your mind to project a thought like that.”

Now I’m almost consoling them for their “failure.”

My attitude suggests I don’t care that it didn’t work. I didn’t really expect it to. And it certainly doesn’t reflect poorly on me.

Not acting as if it was my failure is good, whether they’re friendly or hostile.

If the interaction is friendly and good-natured, and they’re really just curious if you can read their mind in this unadulterated way, then by not taking blame for the failure you can say, “That’s okay. You can learn to be a better projector of thoughts, and I can get better at reading you. If we practice, we can improve.” And you have a premise you can use with that person for a long time, where you try different experiments with passing thoughts between each other.

I have a couple of people in my life where this “storyline” has been playing out for years. And so they have maybe a dozen or so interactions to look back on where one or the other of us is trying to transmit a thought. Yes, I’m sure they know that these are tricks on some level. But it’s our own special little series of tricks and interactions that was borne out of their original question to me.

Now, if the person is doing it to challenge me. If they say, “But I thought you could read my mind?” in some sort of antagonistic way. Then I’ll say something like, “Well yeah, in a way. But reading a mind is like reading anything else. To read it, it has to be legible. You just weren’t able to project what you were thinking legibly. But don’t worry. Hardly anyone can do that. That’s why you really never see it done that way.”

But again, I would only push back on them if they’re pushing back towards me—if they’re taking something that is clearly meant to be in fun and trying to “win” the interaction. But that rarely ever happens.

The fact is, if—from the beginning—you can portray your mind reading as something we’re going to accomplish together rather than “Look what I can do,” then you can almost eliminate the issue of people challenging your process in the first place.

Sponts

If you’ve followed this site for some time, you’ve probably noticed that I like to categorize techniques. Things like: Imps, Reps, Hooks, Performance Styles, Buy-Ins, Cast, etc. I even created a category for these categories: Extra-Presentational Techniques—meaning the things that you can add to a trick that enhance it other than just the presentation. It’s “extra” in the sense of going “beyond” the trick’s presentation. (Not “extra-presentational” like “very very presentational.”)

The reason I like categorizing such things is that I think it helps me to identify other similar techniques that might slip by me otherwise.

I’ve come up with a new category of techniques, but I haven’t come up with a name for it yet.

Part of the reason I’m having a hard time naming the technique is because I’m having a hard time stating simply what they do. Essentially, they’re designed to make a trick feel more vital, timely, and relevant. Something that makes a trick feel more “of the moment.”

If I pull a book out of my bag and ask you to think of a word from it, that’s one thing. If we’re walking, and we come across a Little Free Library and I do the same trick, I think that has a significantly different feel to it.

In this case, the Little Free Library aspect of it would be an example of the technique. It’s not really a “Hook” so much. At least not in my vernacular. A hook is something that causes the spectator to initiate the conversation that naturally leads to a trick. The hook might be designed to lead to one specific trick, or a conversation that leads to talking about magic generally. (The greatest hook of all time, I’m convinced by hearing from others, is this shirt from the Dumb Houdini store. Wear it out to a bar or gathering, and you will have all the opportunities you want to perform. The background being that this was the shirt you received when participating in this event.)

But what I’m talking about today isn’t really a Hook. It’s a simple thing you can add to a trick to make it seem more spontaneous. (Perhaps I’ll call this group of techniques Sponts. I’m not sure.)

Here’s the example I want to share with you today. It’s good for anyone who carries a messenger bag or computer bag. Or you can carry it in the backseat of your car. Or leave it inside your house near your front door.

All it is, is a mailing envelope addressed to you, in which you place the prop you need for a trick you want to perform.

It may seem like an insignificant thing, but I think it can add greatly to the experience.

Going back to the book test example. If I pull a book out of my bag and ask you to think of a word in it and I read your mind, that’s a good trick. But do you see how it can feel different if I’m arranging stuff in my bag and I pull out the padded envelope and drop it on the table as I’m putting my laptop back in and as I go to put the envelope back in, I’m like, “I just got this interesting book…oh wait… maybe we could try something…”?

Or an interesting crystal.

Or an interesting deck of cards.

Or an interesting picture.

Or even an “interesting old magic trick.”

In fact, it doesn’t need to even be “interesting.” It’s just a book you got in the mail today, or a deck of cards, or whatever. Maybe it’s something you bought yourself. Or something a friend bought for you. Or something this guy you barely know sent along because he saw it and thought of you.

The envelope I use looks something like this.

The return address is BH Curiosities. Which is a generic enough company that I could conceivably receive pretty much anything in the mail from, old or new. There’s no telling if it’s something I ordered for myself or someone ordered for me. So I can spin any story that way. The name suggests potentially an unusual place, but not necessarily. It’s not like, “The Emporium of Wonderful Magical Artifacts” or something. And the address is too complicated to likely be memorized by anyone taking a quick look at it. (Not that anyone will, really.)

The envelope is open. I don’t act like I don’t know what’s inside (although that’s a way you could go too). I just act as if this is something that came to me recently, and it ended up in my bag (or on a table near my front door).

You might say, “I don’t get it. I don’t see how that adds anything to the trick.” Well, I’m not going to try and convince you. It might not be the sort of thing that works for you. But it’s been working for me.

Think of it like this… Remember back to the days when you used to get your pictures developed at the store. Okay, so imagine it’s 1998. We meet up in a coffee shop. At some point I’m looking through my bag, and say, “Oh, I got some film developed today.” We look through the pictures together and a few of them are me, greased up in my Speedo, getting ready for a bodybuilding competition.

Now compare that to us meeting up at the coffee shop and I open up my bag and take out three framed pictures of myself, greased up in my Speedo, getting ready for a bodybuilding competition.

Let’s say my intention was the same in both situations: I wanted you to look at my oily beefcake physique. So the intention is the same, the pictures are the same, the environment is the same, your erection is the same.

The only thing that’s different is that they were in an envelope with other photos. And yet that completely changes the dynamic of the interaction. One feels casual and off-handed. The other feels desperate and pathetic.

Ideally, the feeling we’re going for is this…

Instead of them thinking, “He carries around that thing around with him so he can show people a trick.”

We want to nudge them toward thinking, “He has that thing with him because he just got it in the mail. And because I happened to be here with him now, he wanted to show what he just got to me.”

A trick that evolves out of the second thought is, generally, going to feel more raw and spontaneous (and therefore more personal and “of this very moment”) to the spectator. It adds a bit more serendipity to the encounter—”Oh, he happened to have just got this thing in the mail around the time we happened to be spending some time together.” And a little more serendipity is never a bad thing.

Sure, there are some tricks that have to be presented as “Here’s something I’ve been working on for a little while.” You don’t just “spontaneously” decide to create four piles of three cards and an Ace, or something like that. But there are a lot of tricks that benefit from feeling more unplanned. That can be hard to do when you’re carrying an object around with you. The Mailing Envelope Spont (?🤷‍♂️) is just a way to add a bit more of that element back in.

I’ll share more of these ideas in the future.

Mailbag #112: Hot

On the cafe at the moment there’s a bit of debate about the trick Hot by Alexander Marsh.

[Hot is a trick where you are able to know, without looking, the results of a spectator’s coin flip. It uses a “decision-making coin” rather than a normal coin.]

I like the effect, but I’m not sure if I should buy it for the routine and then just use gimmicked normal coins rather than the gimmicked decision making coins. WWJD? What would Jerx do?—RJA

I completely understand the desire to do this with “normal” coins. For twenty years, at least, I was a big believer in the idea that magic should use “everyday objects.” I still believe that in most cases. Unless the strange object that you’re using is, in fact, the focal point of the story you’re telling. (See my discussion on the Nickels to Dimes gimmick).

Most magicians are telling the same story with every trick: “I have a special power.” And if that’s the story you’re telling, then yes, you’ll probably want to use normal coins.

The benefits to using normal coins for this are obvious. (To be cleaer, I say “normal” but you will need to switch in and out gimmicked coins, if I’m understanding how the trick works correctly. I just mean “normal” in the sense of a coin the spectator is familiar with.)

But there are drawbacks to normal coins for this trick as well:

First, If you leave a quarter on the table, it’s not going to inspire anyone to ask about it. Whereas, if this coin is sitting out, there’s a likelihood they might pick it up, look at it, comment on it, etc. Which is a nice, natural transition into the trick.

Second, from the social magician’s perspective… okay, so I show you a trick one day where you flip a “normal” coin, and I’m able to tell you how it landed.

Now, what happens the next day, or a month from now, when you pull out your own quarter and say, “Hey, let’s try that again”? If you’re a professional, or you won’t see that person ever again for some reason, this isn’t a concern. But if you’re a casual performer, then your ability to know the result of a coin toss actually is something that’s likely to come up in the future. And if you have to run off to get your own “normal” quarter to demonstrate it, then that’s actually going to be far more suspicious than using this coin, I would think.

Third, story-wise, this coin offers a lot more than just doing it with a normal coin. Where did the coin come from? What’s the history behind it? How did it end up with you? If you can make the coin feel like a unique object, that’s going to help disguise the method.

And instead of the story being, “This is something I can do with any coin.” It becomes, “Yes, this is an unusual coin… more unusual than you know.”

Maybe the story is that you’ve been using this coin since your uncle gave it to you as a kid, and that’s why you have this connection to it.

Or maybe it’s this “really convenient” decision-making coin. “I don’t know how it works. But you don’t even need to carry it with you throughout the day. Somehow, if you just concentrate, you’re able to know how it would land if it had been flipped. I’ll show you….”

Or maybe you tell this story…

You ask your friend to help plan an imaginary evening for you, using this decision-making coin. “Should I follow my head and do my taxes? Or should I follow my heart and read my collection of Juggs magazine?”

They flip the coin but don’t tell you the results.

“Okay, should I follow my head and have a healthy grilled chicken breast for dinner? Or follow my heart and order a large pizza?” They again flip the coin but don’t tell you how it landed.

“And finally, should I kill myself tonight by drinking bleach? Yes or no?”

For a final time, they flip the coin.

You ask what the coin said you should do tonight. Read Juggs, eat pizza, and kill yourself.

“Here’s the thing,” you say, “this isn’t really a decision-making coin. It’s better. The guy at the curiosities shop who sold it to me explained how it works. Sort of. It doesn’t make a decision for you. It somehow… knows what you already want. So if you’re not sure what you really want, it will tell you. And if you are sure, you can justify your decisions with the coin by seemingly ‘leaving it up to fate.’”

You get up from the couch and start walking to the kitchen and wave your friend along to follow you.

“The truth is,” you say, “I already knew what my plans for tonight would be ages ago.”

In the kitchen now, they see the table is covered with porno mags, pizza boxes and a wine glass full of bleach.

So, while I can’t speak to the strength of the method or the handling used, I can say that I wouldn’t be turned off by the decision-making coin aspect of the trick. I’d probably be more likely to do the trick with such a coin rather than a normal quarter.

Keep in mind that while it isn’t a “normal coin” it’s also not a completely made-up thing for a trick. Decision-making coins do exist. You can buy them on Amazon. I’m sure most people have heard of them, and if they haven’t, it takes about three seconds to explain what they are.

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I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite use of this type of prop which uses my friend Stasia’s unique decision-making coin, which has a YES but no NO. More details can be found here.

Dustings #106

Schedule announcement:

You’ve got nine months to prepare. I will be taking most of January 2025 off to finish book number eight. At that point, it will be my first extended time off from the site in three years. But trust me, time off to write a book is not “time off.” Just like the week at the end of the month when I write the newsletter isn’t like…

Book number eight, is called The 88th Parallel (I think). And it will be out in April/May of next year for supporters at the Rich Uncle Millionaire level. (Those supporter slots are limited and currently sold out. But if you’re a supporter at the lower level, you’ll be on the waiting list for R.U.M. slots when they become available.)

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If you’re at the intersection of Tenyo, the Jerx, and 3-D printing, like supporter Nick O., then you might be interested in this email he sent recently.

I've been getting into 3D printing over the last year and one of the best uses for it is making one-off home organization things nobody else in the world cares about.

Recently I've been cleaning up my shelves to try and build a little "wonder room" display and thought it'd be nice to have some of the examinable Tenyo tricks out and ready to go in a neat manner. 

So I designed this little display stand for Mister Danger.

https://www.printables.com/model/805654-mister-danger-display-stand

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Finally… FINALLY!!!

People are finally creating magic that addresses the question… “What would you do if you had REAL magic powers?”

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Me in school when the teacher says, “I want you to have three supporting bullet points.” And I have a total of zero supporting bullet points.

Two Comedians: Part Two

Today I want to talk about a magic lesson from Bill Cosby.

“Ah, what is this, exactly? Some sort of roofie palming technique? A way to get quaaludes into someone’s sweet tea without them noticing? Excellent.”

No. Sorry. You’re going to have to manage that yourself.

This lesson can be found in Bill Cosby’s special, “Himself.”

It happens when he gets his first laugh of the show.

What does he do?

He reacts with surprise.

Like, “Oh… you’re laughing!”

It’s a reaction that tells the audience: “Your response has an effect on me.” And it’s especially effective when you acknowledge their first moment of reaction.

I think we sometimes forget this with magic.

We can encourage their reactions by letting their reactions affect us.

This is, of course, a life skill as well. People will be kinder to us if they see their kindness affects us. They’ll be more generous to us if they see their generosity affects us. They’ll laugh at our jokes if their laughter affects us.

Don’t take their reaction for granted. And don’t be in such a hurry to rush to the climax of your coin routine, that you don’t take time to acknowledge their response to the first coin vanish.

I’ve seen magicians actually stop people from reacting so that they can move on with their routine. I’ve also seen magicians completely ignore audience’s responses. Like, “Yes, of course you’re amazed by this.”

All this does is train people that their reactions are irrelevant.

Don’t do that.

Be like Cosby.

(In this one, very specific, way.)

Two Comedians: Part One

Today’s and tomorrow’s posts will be about two lessons I was reminded of by two different comedians.

Those comedians are Louis CK and Bill Cosby.

And, of course, the lessons I learned are about how to deal with women.

Relax. I’m kidding.

They’re two lessons that apply to the performance of magic.

First, Louis CK

I can’t properly credit this, because I heard it from a friend who heard it on a podcast by someone who was quoting Louis. I’ve looked up some keywords but can’t find the quote. So he may have never said this. Or he may have said something similar but not exactly this thing, but the general idea behind what he said was this:

There is reciting, and there is talking/communicating, and those two things occur on opposite sides of your brain.

Now, whether this is scientifically true doesn’t really matter to me. It’s effectively true.

When you are reciting patter, you are not in communication mode.

Social magic should feel like communication, not a lecture.

When it comes to the “patter” for an effect, I spend a lot of time thinking:

What is the story I want to convey?

I spend ZERO time thinking:

What are the words I want to say?

I see a lot of magicians who have clearly memorized the words they want to say, only to say some bland bullshit nobody cares about. They’re focusing on the wrong part of “scripting.” They’re focused on the words, not the point.

Once you know the point you want to convey, the words will work themselves out.

Now, you might say, “But I’m not comfortable speaking extemporaneously.”

Okay, so what? The goal—in social magic— isn’t for your patter to be clever and well-spoken. The goal is for it to be congruent with what speaking to you normally is like. That way, when you go into a trick, it doesn’t feel like…

Do you script out all your other conversations? No. Do you trust yourself to tell the story of how UPS delivered the package to the wrong house, and you paid for insurance, but the sender says you need to work it out with UPS, and UPS says you need to work it out with the sender? Okay. Well, if you can tell that story without scripting it out, you can tell the story of the weird ring you bought at the garage sale without scripting that out.

This way, rather than engaging the part of your brain that is concerned with remembering words, you can use the part of your brain that is focused on connecting and communicating.