Reactions

Diane Morgan is a clearly a Jerx reader. (Or maybe the writer.)

The comment about reactions is dead on. The amount of magicians who are okay with these types of reactions is astonishing.

I think a lot of magicians are so fucking dense that they think that if people don’t like a trick they’ll just sit there with their arms folded. No. If people don’t like your trick, they will politely clap and go, “Wowww. That’s great. Thank you.”

That’s the social contract. And it’s the least they can do.

When people are really affected by your trick, they will violate the social contract. They may curse, hit you, scream, shut down, maniacally laugh, leave the room, cry, or something along those lines.

Not everything will elicit those sorts of reactions, but that’s what a really strong reaction looks like. Not smiling and clapping.

Saying, “This trick gets a great reaction because they smiled and clapped,” is like saying, “I think the waitress has a crush on me because she was friendly to me. I’m going to giver her my number.”

Honestly assessing audience reactions is probably the rarest skill with magicians.

Speaking of which, can we stop doing this:

“If I find your card, you all have to give me a big round of applause. Deal?”

I’ve heard the excuses. I’ve heard that often audiences don’t know how to react to magicians. I don’t really believe that (see the Diane Morgan clip above).

If you’re performing in a professional-ish situation, and you think people don’t know the correct way to respond, then maybe instead of begging for a reaction, it would be better to prime them for how they can react earlier in the performance.

“Magic is unusual in the arts. When I’m done with a trick, most of the time people will break into applause. That’s a great feeling. Or they may swear. Or scream. Last night, a woman punched me in the shoulder. And these are reaction I get from people who like what I do. It’s unsettling to not know how people will react. I don’t feel other performers have to deal with this sort of thing. Like, if you enjoy a tap dancer, you’ll clap at the end of his performance. It’s not like sometimes you’ll clap, but if he’s really good you may pull his hair, or push him down the stairs.”

I’m not saying that’s great, but if you put more than the 8 seconds of thought I put into it, you can probably come up with something.

I’ve also heard the idea is that if the person who booked you overhears applause, they’ll think you’re doing a good job. I mean… okay… but “I tricked the booker into thinking people liked me,” is hardly a great rationale for something.

I hate lines like this for two reasons:

1. You’re messing with people’s natural reactions, which is the most valuable thing we have to assess how a trick is being perceived.

2. It comes off as sad and desperate to audiences.

In any situation, coercing people into how you want them to react to you feels pathetic.

Now, if you liked this blog post, hit that like and subscribe button and tell your friends.

How To Be A Person With an Interest In Magic

In last Tuesday’s post, I wrote about the benefits of inhabiting the role of the Enthusiast. And I’ve written in the past about how I think it’s important to come off as someone with an interest in magic.

I find many magicians are loath to do this. In fact, they’re much more comfortable showing someone a magic trick than they are suggesting that they themselves have an interest in magic. Which says a lot, considering many magicians aren’t at all comfortable with performing.

But I think it’s important for me to clarify what I mean by portraying yourself as “someone with an interest in magic.” I’m realizing that phrase can be really misinterpreted in a way.

I’m not saying you should go around telling everyone about your “hero” Lance Burton.

I’m not saying you should put up a bunch of Houdini posters around the house.

I’m not saying you should walk around wearing a two-piece Criss Angel outfit.

That sort of thing isn’t going to do you any favors. When I say that I try and come across as a magic enthusiast, I don’t mean that I’m a fan of magic performers or that I watch a bunch of magic on tv or something.

What I want to portray is that I am an enthusiast for the concepts behind the premises I use when I perform.

I’m someone with an interest in magic. Specifically, things like sleight of hand, mind-reading, strange psychological quirks, hypnotism, rituals, secret societies, gambling, memory, unexplained phenomenon, etc.

My story is I was once a kid who was into magic tricks and David Copperfield specials, but that interest has metamorphized and shattered into all these different interests that I can tie back to a general interest in “magic.”

Expressing these interests is much more fascinating and potentially relatable than saying, “I like watching magic tricks on youtube.”

Here are a few quick ways to exhibit this “interest” in magic that don’t involve performing. (If the only time you express an interest in magic is when you’re performing, it suggests that you’re only interested in magic insofar as you can use it to get adulation from people.)

Decline Invitations

If you weren’t going to take someone up on their invitation in the first place, you can always decline their invitation with a somewhat intriguing excuse.

“Oh, I wish I could come to your cat’s birthday party, but I’m busy tonight. I’m going into the city for a gathering of this… like it’s this group I’m in that gets together to talk about obscure magic concepts. There’s this 98-year-old hypnotist/psychologist guy that they’re bringing in from Belarus who can supposedly cause people to lose their ability to read temporarily. And he’s going to try and teach it to us.”

Or…

“Oh, I wish I could come to your cat’s bar mitzvah, but I have a bunch of shit to do tonight. I’m trying to get into this… I guess you’d say it’s a ‘secret society’ but it’s just this group of magicians in the northeast. But to get in the group, you have to accomplish a magic challenge that they design for you. It’s corny. But anyway, I have to figure it out and submit my video to them by midnight tonight.”

Leave Breadcrumbs

Leave an old strange booklet on your office desk.

Or a strange crystal, or a stack of half dollars, or an interesting deck of cards, or some inscrutable instructions for a “Coincidence Ritual.”

If someone comments on these things, don’t go into a trick. Just say, “Ah, it was something I’ve been playing around with. I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere.”

Usually, people assume a magician’s tricks are something that anyone could do if they knew the secret. The idea that you’re dipping into something that might not pan out suggests something more interesting at play.

Again, this all just to push and pull against the idea that the next time you show them something, they can automatically dismiss it as “just a trick.” Sure, it was a trick, of course. But what exactly is behind some of these tricks?

Ask “Magic” Types of Questions Without Going Into A Trick

For example, you ask your friend if they have a minute to help you with something.

“Imagine you’re walking down a path in the woods. The path splits in two. There’s a sign that says Red and a sign that says Black. I want you to think about it and let me know which path you’d choose if you had to.”

Then you continue on like this, taking them to paths marked Hearts and Diamonds and so on. Essentially you’re equivoque’ing down to one card… except with no equivoque and no payoff. This is just part of your “interest” in regard to “something you’re working on.”

So they give their answers, and you maybe make notes or just nod to yourself, “Okay, okay,” as if this is all meaningful to you in some way. And that’s the end of it.

Or you ask them to hold a quarter in each hand, and you say you’re going to concentrate for a few moments, and you just need them to hold the coins for the moment. After 30 seconds, you say, “Okay, this might be easy to do or not easy to do, but if you had to say one of those coins was hotter than the other… which would you say is the hot one?”

Again, there’s no payoff. This is just you playing around with some concept related to something that interests you.

But at a later point in time, when maybe you bend a coin for that person in the future, they might think, Wait… did that have something to do with the thing I helped him with?

Sometimes people will express a very distinct interest, wondering what it is you’re working on. Great. Tell them you’ll show them in a week or two. You’ve set the hook. And now you have a week or two to figure out what the hell you’re going to show them.

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These sorts of things allow you to engage someone’s imagination without actually showing them a trick. This accomplishes a few things:

1. It builds anticipation for when you do show them a trick.

2. It gives you a way to transition into a trick, e.g., “Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when…?”

3. It creates a richer backstory for your performances. It’s not just about this 2-minute moment, but there is a history and some mysterious underpinnings to what they’re about to see.

Mailbag #121

What trick of yours is Derren Brown talking about in this video around the 52 minute mark? Is this available somewhere?—OL

He’s talking about my presentation for the Invisible Deck called In Search of Lost Time.

That trick is available on the site here.

With further discussion about it here.

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An interesting detail about Mac King came out in this recent email exchange I had with him.

Good morning. Just wanted to congratulate you on your answers to that kid Ryan’s email questions. Particularly the question about why magic makes a great hobby. Delightfully insightful. And then I flatter myself by thinking that the rest of the email was similar to my experience growing up. Are you sure I’m not the person who writes The Jerx? —Mac King

My response:

There's only one way to tell if this is a Fight Club scenario and I'm you during some fugue state…

Tonight I'm going to put a traffic cone in my asshole up to the point where it starts to hurt. Then I'm going to push it a few inches deeper. Tomorrow, make note of how your anus feels. It's foolproof. (Unless you regularly wake up with a mysteriously sore asshole.) 

He replied:

If a traffic cone is snug in your ass then we are definitely two different people. An entire traffic cone would easily slip into my sphincter without any lubrication. 

I wanted to make sure this detail was captured for any future Mac King biographers. Wouldn’t want this nugget lost to time.

Dustings #113

The winner of the Gumbo song cover contest has been notified and will be posted here in the future. The other submissions will be receiving Gumbo the trick. Or, more likely, I’ll just paypal them $20 to buy it themselves if they want. So they can watch it morph, watch it last, etc.

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I read this line in the book, A House With Good Bones by T Kingfisher, and I’ve been using it sometimes when I’ve flipped from talking about something semi-normal to something crazier.

The other day I was telling someone how there is an old ritual that can be used to induce coincidences.

It’s at this point I’ll often get a look—especially if they haven’t seen me do too much magic. The look says, “Does he believe this? Does he expect me to believe this? What exactly is going on?”

It’s here I say this line, “Yes, it’s impossible. I know it’s impossible. I am telling you this, knowing that it’s impossible. The impossibility is the point.”

The idea is to harp on the impossibility so it leaves no misunderstanding about what it is I’m suggesting. It makes it clear I’m not a lunatic. It makes it clear I know what reality should be.

It’s the difference between going up to someone and saying:

“This is going to sound crazy. I want you to know that I know it sounds crazy. And I wouldn’t believe it if someone said it to me… but there’s a dragon in my basement.”

As opposed to just walking up to someone and saying,

“There’s a dragon in my basement!”

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The remnants of Hurricane Debby came through New York today and knocked out the power to the café I was writing in. After waiting around for about 10 minutes to see if it would come back on, I decided to head home. On my way out, Bella, the barista, pointed at me and said with mock accusation, “You did this!”

I walked over to her.

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m not someone to be messed with.”

As I walked out, I turned back to her and said, “I’ll fix it.” I held my hands out in front of me, paused, and then clapped them together.

For a beat, nothing happened.

But as I was about to say, “That would have been cool though,” the lights flickered on.

So I ended up saying, “That…There you go.” And flashed her the peace sign and backed out the door as she stood behind the counter with her mouth hanging open.

She’s a little chatterbox who talks up everyone who comes in, so I have a feeling this story may grow to legendary status before I return there next week.

Mailbag: Bullies/Hecklers

Hey, I'm probably one of your younger readers. [Irrelevant personal detail.] I'm still in high school and I've been trying to follow your advice about performing more. Most of the time it’s great but sometimes people make shitty comments. It's like heckling I guess but since we’re in school it feels more like bullying. They don’t try to reveal my tricks, it’s just general comments about the trick (or me) being stupid or lame. Do you have any tips for a comeback or a trick to shut them down?—TH

You can search “heckler” on this site for examples of how I handle such people on the rare occasions I encounter them.

For your particular situation, the best idea is to avoid performing when people like that are around. You want to be cultivating a group of people who are into seeing what you do, not spending your time dealing with some douchebag who doesn’t like it (or feels threatened by it).

If you can’t avoid it, then you shouldn’t be looking for a comeback to “shut them down” and certainly not a trick.

If someone says something shitty to you, your first instinct might be to say something shitty back. Your next instinct might be to ignore it. These are bad ideas, especially if you are in some way “lower status” than them (less popular, physically smaller, etc.).

If you do those things then you’re giving them what they want. You’re showing them they affected you and “hurt” you in a manner where you felt the need to lash out or shut down.

Instead, think of it like this… have you ever had, like, a 2-year-old cousin start punching you in the shoulder? And you might sarcastically play along like he’s hurting you. “Oww, stop, noooo, you broke my arm.”

This is the attitude you can bring to these types of interactions where someone is being verbally rude or aggressive with you.

So if Todd is like, “What a fucking magic-dork you are.”

You just put your hand on your heart and let a phony pained expression come across your face. “Todd, how could you say such an awful thing!” Then immediately drop the pained attitude and turn to someone else and engage them in conversation.

This lets Todd know:

1. I heard you

2. I understand what you were intending to do with your remark

3. I really don’t give a shit

You can also steal a line from my friend Tim, who will often say this, in mock offense…

"YOU say THAT to ME?”

He says it like he’s the queen.

He says it as if every element is appalling to him.

That YOU would have something to say.

That it would be THAT.

And that you’d say it to ME.

Pretending to be offended when someone is genuinely trying to offend you is about the best thing you can do. Especially if that person feels they’re superior to you in some way.

This is actually a devastating psychological ploy. If someone is trying to get you to feel any emotion (happy, upset, aroused, etc.) and you want to destroy them, just obviously pretend to feel the emotion they were trying to produce.

The email writer is in high school, so imagine you waited all year to approach a girl you like. You go up to her and say, “You look really nice today.” It would hurt if she made a face or just turned away, or otherwise rejected you in some way. But what would really make you shrivel up is if she acknowledged it by sarcastically pretending to care. “Oooohh… gee thanks. How will I even be able to sleep tonight after getting such a great compliment from such a cool guy? Oh wow. Is the room spinning or am I falling in love?”

AATKT Update

For those of you who purchased the hardcover version of The Amateur at the Kitchen Table, barring unforeseen circumstances, it should ship at the end of September.

At the beginning of September, I will send an email out to verify your shipping address. I can’t ship the book without you verifying I have the right address, so keep your eye out for that.

To save myself some emails, there aren’t any extra copies. There might be a handful of overage copies from the printer, but maybe not. This was the first and only hard cover edition, and the final print edition of this book in any form.

Below is a preliminary sketch for one of the end-sheet illustrations in the book. It depicts one of the first tricks I ever saw at a kitchen table—the four jacks who go into three different parts of the bank to rob it, but they all run out the front door. (That was the version I heard. I know sometimes it’s presented as a multi-level bank and they all go up to the roof. But I lived in suburbia. Our banks were one story.)

The Three Performance Roles

When you perform a trick, you can take on one of three roles.

The Magician

“The coin disappeared because I made it disappear.”

When you play the role of the “Magician,” you are the all-powerful force behind the magic.

“The ace will disappear from this packet, and reappear in this one.”

Why did the ace do that? Because you made it happen.

When you’re going to a theatrical show, where you expect some level of artifice, it’s easy to accept someone in the role of the Magician. Just like it’s easy to accept someone in the role of Hamlet. Or to accept someone in the role of Starchild (in my upcoming stage production of Scooby Doo! and Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery).

Seeing a magician on stage isn’t that awkward or unusual.

But it can feel out of place at your friend’s BBQ. Just like it would feel out of place to see Hamlet at your friend’s BBQ. “To die, - To sleep, - To sleep! Perchance to dream: - ay, there's the rub! The barbecue rub. Can you pass me that Tonya? I want to get these ribs on the grill.”

And yet, this has been the standard way to perform magic for… centuries?

The Bystander

“What’s going on here? These coins keep disappearing. What the hell?!”

You can present magic as if you’re just a bystander. You don’t know how it’s happening. You don’t know why it’s happening. It’s just happening.

You ball up your paper napkin and toss it toward the trash and it disappears. “What just happened?”

You ask your friend to count how much money they have on them. “This is creeping me out,” you say. “Someone just pushed this letter under the door. It says, ‘I’m watching you. You have $11.63 in their pocket.’ I knew it wasn’t me because I don’t have any money on me. Why would someone write this? How would they know this?”

You act like something creepy or something unusual or something wondrous is “just happening” around you.

It’s a fun way to perform. But there’s no longevity to this style. The minute the second or third strange thing happens, people think, “Ah, I see. It’s just a trick. He’s doing a trick for us and pretending he’s not.”

It has the same issue as playing the part of the Magician. It’s inherently theatrical.

The Enthusiast

This is the third role you can take. You are “someone with an interest in magic.” I could also call this the Dabbler, the Explorer, the Experimenter, the Aficionado, the Seeker, The Hobbyist, The Student, The Participant.

It’s far less awkward to inhabit this role because it has the benefit of being true.

Not only that, but when you embrace this role, you can take on the role of Magician or Bystander now and then, and they won’t come off as “inherently theatrical.”

If everything you do is a demonstration of your “power,” that’s going to ring false. But if you’re an enthusiast of magic, then perhaps occasionally you could access some seemingly real ability. Perhaps not an ability to vanish the statue of liberty or produce doves. But maybe to make that matchstick move with your mind? Hmmm.

If you don’t take credit for any weird thing that happens around you, that’s going to come across as sort of obvious. But if you’re an enthusiast of magic, the perhaps occasionally something strange would happen, or some unusual third party would do something incredible, that you actually weren’t responsible for.

When I perform tricks for people, they certainly will extend into the realm of the fictional and the fantastic. But they always start off with the people involved relating to me as me. Not as some all-powerful god-like being, and not as some phony innocent bystander whom weird things happen around.

And because they know me as someone who is interested in magic, and unusual phenomena, and old rituals, and superstitions, and so on, they’re much more susceptible to letting their guard down and enjoying the experience, because I’m not playing a “character.”

I’ve been banging this drum for a while now—that you should establish yourself as someone with an interest in magic. But I think sometimes people find that hard to do without seeming corny. In an upcoming post, I’ll talk about how to embrace the magic enthusiast role without looking like a goon.