Puff of Smoke

I’ve shared a lot of unpopular opinions on this site:

  • The Expert at the Card Table sucks.

  • No real humans have ever enjoyed a cups and balls or linking ring routine. At least in so much as they never think of it again the moment it’s over.

  • I think Houdini was probably a fucking moron.

Now it’s time for me to share a new piping-hot take…

Look, will smoking kill you?

Almost certainly.

But not that fast. Especially given what you’re doing.

I mean, imagine you had never heard of smoking and someone explained it to you…

“It’s a little paper tube filled with dried plant leaves and chemical additives, and you put it in your mouth. Then you light it on fire, and you suck the toxic smoke into your lungs.”

If they described that, then asked you how long smoking would take to kill you, you’d say, “I don’t know… a minute?”

Like, the fact you can get away with doing it 40 times a day for decades is actually pretty astounding.

Here’s why I want to bring back cigarette magic…

First, I feel like cigarettes themselves are due for a comeback. Sure, it will never be the 1950s again, when there would be a slot in your school lunch tray specifically for cigarettes. But I think there will be a rebound in cigarette usage. And when that happens, you’ll be on the vanguard.

But the main reason I want cigarette magic to make a comeback is that there have been huge advancements in magic methodology in the past couple of decades, at exactly the same time cigarettes were going out of fashion. The group-mind of magicians is more powerful than it’s ever been, and we haven’t turned that towards cigarette magic yet. C’mon, let’s just give it a shot for the next few years. I think we could come up with some cool shit.


I’m not suggesting the Tom Mullica type of thing where you swallow a pack of cigarettes. His routine was amazing, but disgusting.

I think you should lean into the intimate, semi-sexy nature of smoking. Cigarettes are pretty much the only thing used in magic that have that element to it. The smoke, the warm glow, huddling together in the cold with another person, wrapping your lips around something, the fact that you’re slowly killing yourself. That’s sexy shit. What else in magic offers so much seductive potential? You ever try dangling a hot rod from your lip? You look like a motherfucking imbecile!


The best thing you can do with a cigarette, in my opinion, is use a cigarette pull to make it vanish. This is so strong. When I hung around smokers more regularly, I would have a cigarette pull always installed in one of my jackets. I think making a coin completely vanish is a pretty beautiful moment. But a cigarette is even better. It’s bigger. Smoke is coming from it. And it’s on fire. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you should be able to manipulate.

I would usually ask for a drag, take their cigarette, ask if they wanted to see something cool, inhale, put the cigarette in my fist, blow the smoke on my fist, and open it to reveal the cigarette was gone. Always great reactions. Once in a blue moon, someone would get angry that their cigarette was gone, so I’d say, “I made it go back in time. It’s back in your cigarette pack.” Unless they knew exactly how many cigarettes were in their pack, they couldn’t get too mad at me, because maybe I really did what I said. It definitely vanished, after all.


Some cigarette tricks I’d like to see:

  1. You take your friend’s cigarette which is nearly burned down to the butt, and you pull it in a way that the cigarette regenerates to its original state.

  2. When your friend takes out a cigarette, you ask for one too. When he lights his up, you stop him for a moment. He has a lit cigarette in his mouth, you have an unlit one in yours. You bring your hands up and cup your cigarette. When you remove them, your cigarette is lit, and his is now out. So it’s like they changed places.


To show my commitment to this cause, I am launching the following campaign…

The Jerx Fund to Supply Cigarettes to All the Kids at Tannen’s Magic Camp

In the summer of 2025, I will cut a check to Tannen’s to buy a pack of cigarettes for every camper at Tannen’s Magic Camp. People will claim I’m “too generous.” But really I just love magic that much and I’m thankful to have finally found a charitable cause I can get behind 100%. My Cigarettes For Campers (aka “Smoke and Minors”) initiative will now be the primary recipient of my charitable donations.

You’re welcome.

✿✿✿

(Note: I’m actually mostly serious about this post.)

Least Attractive Hobbies

My posts are usually scheduled at least a few days in advance, but this time I have to jump the line with this post so we can put a bullet in it and I can stem the amount of emails I’m getting about it.

This chart:

looks fake as fuck to me. I haven’t done any research on it. But I have a brain in my head.

How do you think this “unattractiveness score” was calculated? Is it a percentage? Do 90% of women think playing video games is unattractive? Or is the average ranking of “unattractiveness” for playing video games a 9 out of 10? Either way, does that seem logical to you? That it would be at the top of the list when it’s the activity that a majority of single women also take part in?

Of course, it’s all nonsense. I would guess it was made by some incel who was like, “Girls are so superficial, they find guys unattractive because of their hobbies!”

There is a tiny 🤏 segment of women who will find any given hobby inherently unattractive (except maybe “online trolling”).

If you’re a funny, charming, interesting person, you can have whatever hobbies you want—so long as they don’t wholly define who you are.

Women don’t dislike you because you “collect figurines.”

They dislike you and you collect figurines.

It’s you. Stop blaming the women. Stop blaming the figurines, the model trains, or the magic tricks.

Video games are unattractive if you spend 14 hours a day playing them.

Collecting figurines is unattractive if you spend all your money on it, or if you can’t actually relate to living beings.

Magic is only unattractive—sadly—because most magicians perform it in an unattractive, desperate manner. Not because most women (or men or whoever) wouldn’t love to see something truly impossible and amazing.

If I’m being honest, in most cases where I’ve made a super-quick romantic connection over the course of a single meeting with someone who was significantly “out of my league,” magic was a part of our interaction at some point during our time together.

So there’s nothing intrinsically unattractive about magic.

There is—I have no doubt—something unattractive (and pathetic) about trying to attract people with magic. And I’m sure magic has dried more panties than moistened them. But that’s because most guys in that situation are attempting to use magic to get something. And that’s obvious to people. That’s not seductive.

But if you genuinely have something fascinating or interesting to share with someone, and you can introduce it in a natural way, and you don’t come off like you’re trying to get something from them, then it can pretty much only serve to ignite or deepen attraction. (Perhaps not a romantic attraction, but at least a human-level of attraction.)

Either way, I wouldn’t worry about that chart above, even if it was based on real data. (It’s not.) But even if it’s just spiritually true, I don’t care.

I actually like when someone tells me they don’t enjoy magic, because it usually means they’ve seen some shitty magic. Low expectations. Good. Much easier to amaze. I just agree with them. “Yeah, I know. Most of it is pretty corny. But there’s this one thing I was reading up on recently, that has me kind of intrigued….”

If you can be charismatic and win them over by showing them something that captures their interest despite their negative perceptions, that’s actually more powerful and seductive than simply engaging someone in a conversation about something they already like.

Anatomy of a "Whimper"

Benjamin Budzak from ThoughtCast Magic sent along this email…

“Latest release from magic live…went out with a whimper… can I get your feedback on this?

The question of why a trick didn’t go over as well as hoped is an interesting thing to consider. (Assuming it’s a halfway decent trick.) It’s essentially an extension of my offer to tell people the worst thing about their trick.

So let’s consider why this trick might not have taken off the way Benjamin wanted. I don’t know if these are the actual reasons, but just some considerations.

The trick is a signed card to box, where the card visually appears in the box. The box used is a Trader Joe’s mint box (although it can appear as a generic mint box if you don’t have Trader Joe’s in your area).

The notion of a card visually appearing in a box is a good one. And—depending on what you’re going for—could be considered a big advancement to the standard card to box. Or could even make for an interesting follow-up to a standard Card to Box.

So if I had to guess why this version didn’t gain the traction he had expected, these would be my suppositions. These are based only on the demo and the nature of the trick itself. I haven’t handled the actual effect in person or seen how it was marketed elsewhere.

Card to Box Isn’t Sexy. These things tend to go in cycles. In the late 2010s there was an influx of Card to Box effects. This version may have come out at a non-peak time.

It’s Too Familiar. “A card appears in a mint box? Oh yeah… didn’t Danny Garcia release that?”

With so much magic released every week, it’s hard to pull eyes to your product if it doesn’t feel truly unique.

While this version is significantly different from other variations on Card to Box, that might not be completely obvious unless people really pay attention (which they might not do if they feel they already know what they’re looking at).

It’s Too Unfamiliar. What is this box? If you go to Trader Joe’s and buy the mints regularly, then this is an “ordinary object.” But that is—at most—probably 1% of the population. For almost everyone else, this is a somewhat unusual looking box.

The Demo Video Style. This style of advertising video, that’s focused on the reactions, feels somewhat dated. I think there was a time when magicians would look at videos like this and think, “Wow! Look at the reactions this trick gets. If I get this trick… then I can get these reactions!” But I think in 2024 magicians understand the reactions in demo videos aren’t a good barometer for how good the trick is. I think we still like to see reactions, I just don’t think they’re persuasive anymore.

More than ever, I think magicians expect to see something close to a complete performance on the demo video.

The Incomplete Demo. Traditionally, in a Card to Box effect, the moment people want to see is when the card is removed from the box. That moment isn’t shown at all in this demo. So most people will think: “It must not look good. If it looked good, he would have shown it.”

Some Minor Tweaks. You should have always used a red-backed card in the demo. It’s harder to see the appearance of the blue card in that video.

The appearance also needs a little finesse. As it’s performed in the demo, the card looks like it pops into the case when the case is squeezed. It looks too mechanical.

I think it’s better if it feels like the card fades into existence more than that it “pops” into existence. A smooth wave of the hand back and forth would hide the squeezing action and look more magical

Inherent Issues.

  • A card appearing in a mint tin has no particular meaning to anyone.

  • The label which covers the front of the mint tin makes the appearance significantly less visually arresting. Obviously it’s necessary for the method, but it also means that you’re only seeing a small portion of the card appear.

His Reputation. ThoughtCast Magic is known for producing tricks using phones and electronics. So the audience he has built up might not be overly interested in this style of effect. Whereas if Sankey or someone like that had put this out, it might have gotten a better response as it’s more in line with the style of his previous releases.

The Price. I think the price of $65 is completely fair—especially since the trick is a relatively small release from an independent creator. But that price is still above the $20-$40 impulse purchase price that I think most magicians are willing to take a chance on. And given that this is not really in line with the type of material he has released in the past, I don’t think he can just rely on his past releases to sell this one. So this one will need to be sold based on the strength of reviews and recommendations.


Those would be my guesses as to why this didn’t get the response Benjamin might have wanted. Some of these issues can be addressed, some can’t.

As a final note, I actually think the unedited performance he sent me a couple of months ago does a better job of selling the strength of the visual appearance of the card. So for those who are interested in this effect, here’s a clip from that video. (This is all one shot, I just sped up the middle part for the sake of the GIF.)


Dustings #114

Tobias Dostal is absolutely in the upper echelon of magic creators, in my opinion. His trick, Card Around The World, was one of my favorite contributions to the Jerx Holiday Part last year. (Don’t bother looking for it now, it was only up for a limited time.)

But, is there anything that can be done about the way we roll out tricks in the magic community? Because I’m already sick of his new effect, and I haven’t even performed it once.

Do I need 28 emails about this trick? Because that’s what I got. And every dull magic reviewer on youtube had to give their two cents too. The trick is unavoidable.

I realize this is probably good marketing. But, for me, it takes a little bit of the excitement out of it when the product becomes so ubiquitous. And I don’t love the fact that someone googling melted ring magic trick would be brought straight to videos on youtube showing not only that it’s a trick anyone can buy, but the workings of the trick too.

Oh well. I guess there’s nothing that can be done about that. I just like bitching about it because I have a platform to bitch about stuff.


Does anyone want to try and justify this trick?

It’s not Craig’s trick. He’s just demo’ing it. (It’s extra confusing because Craig has a trick called EDCeipt and this is called EDC Receipt.)

Just to be clear, here’s what happens in the trick:

One spectator thinks of a celebrity.

Another spectator picks a card.

Craig says he’s going to find that card by using “Sleight of Receipt.”

Two more cards are selected.

The receipt is placed in the deck and it “finds” the two most recently selected cards.

Then it’s noted that the first letter of the items on the receipt spell out the first card that was selected.

Oh, and if you scan a QR code on the receipt, it brings you to Gordon Ramsay’s website. Which was the celebrity thought of earlier on. Remember that?

What are we doing, folks? This is not a trick. It’s just a pointless combination of a bunch of shit. It’s only a “trick” to the extent that a bowl full of diarrhea is a “meal.”

We can do better, guys.

I have bad news for you…. It’s not 1980 anymore. Having a specially printed fake receipt is not enough to build a trick around. Making a fake receipt is something any dolt with a 4th grade education and a 15-year-old ink-jet printer could accomplish. You’re not fooling anyone.


Now that I think of it… here’s what I’d do if I bought that Liquify trick mentioned above.

I’d buy a bunch of inexpensive white rings so I could give them away.

Then, when I crossed paths with an attractive woman, I’d make this face:

Then I’d say, “I have something for you.”

And I’d undo my pants, and I’d reach into my boxer-briefs with the white gimmick on and make it look I was playing with the load she had just induced.

Then I’d solidify my spunk into a ring for her and give it to her as the ultimate in romantic gesture.

Mailbag: Blind Fly

What do you think about this trick? Is there a way to pull this off without offending some people? I think it would make me laugh if I saw it. But is it that different than Baffling Bra or other tricks that some people find offensive? I don’t know what to think. —MM

It’s hard to say. There’s not some line of demarcation where things become offensive.

That’s not how it works.

It’s more like this…

Very few things are always offensive or always inoffensive.

Everything else is audience and performer dependent.

On two different occasions, when I had an office job, co-workers were reprimanded by human resources for doing or saying something inappropriate. And both of those times the guys said to HR, “I was just making a joke. Why doesn’t Andy get written up for the things he does?” And they went on to repeat a litany of awful things I had said or done in the office. The woman who ran HR (who told me about these incidents) told them, “He doesn’t get written up because no one has ever complained.”

I have some sort of gene that allows me to identify how far I can push things, and with whom. Or I have a pheromone that causes people to laugh at what I say and not get worked up about it. I don’t know. Whatever it is, I don’t know that it’s something that can be taught.

Props like this, or even the Baffling Bra, are at worst mildly risqué. But the problem is, many magicians already come across as creeps regardless of what they’re doing. If you add any element of “lewdness” to the interaction, then that’s only going to exacerbate the creepiness.

In reality, there is probably no kid in the world who would be offended by this. And if you’re performing for all adults, they’ll understand it’s a joke as well. It’s when you’re performing for kids and there are adults in the room that you’d be most likely to have an issue. Regardless of whether they know it’s a joke or not, there’s going to be a certain amount of adults who won’t think the trick is appropriate for kids.

It’s somewhat understandable. Unfortunately, magicians have a rich history of shoving kids faces into their underwear. Usually, in that case, the performer is wearing the underwear. But either way, there are going to be adults who just aren’t okay with anything even on the edge of sexuality (even if a bunch of 8-year-olds don’t really see it that way).

Theatrically, it’s probably funnier to use on yourself anyway. And then if anyone gets offended, they’re just being ridiculous.

Blindfold yourself before you’re going to read someone’s mind or something. Then immediately start sniffing the air.

Sniff Sniff Sniff

Let an unpleasant look come across your face.

Continue on with your patter, but every now and again turn to speak to someone on the side of the stage and say, as an aside, “Is someone cutting up durian for the fruit salad?”

Or, “Is there a sewage leak?”

Or, “Did someone put the cat’s litter box in the oven thinking it was a tray of lasagna?”

So you’re alternating your patter with little asides about some horrible thing you’re smelling.

Eventually you can’t take it anymore and come to the front of the stage—still blindfolded.

“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I hate to stop the show. But obviously someone is playing an awful trick on me. The moment I put on this blindfold, someone decided to start tormenting me by unleashing some god awful, putrid smell into the air. At first I thought maybe it was just a coincidence. But it’s now clear that someone is targeting me with this putrid smell and they think they can take advantage of me because I’m blindfolded. I’m not sure what the scent is… It smells like maybe the rotting corpse of a guy whose intestines burst after he consumed too many deviled eggs. And I don’t know how you’re directing that smell at me. But if you don’t stop this torture, I will stop the show. Okay?" Wait a moment. Take a big inhale. “That’s it. Show’s over. I won’t be subjected to this anymore.”

Pull off the blindfold. Notice it’s underwear. Wrinkle your forehead as it dawns on you what’s going on. Give the underwear a quick whiff. Control yourself from vomiting.

By making yourself the victim, you get to play the moment for more than just a brief laugh, and up the ante on how gross it actually is to have this pair of underwear around your face. And if anyone says they’re offended by it, you can just tell them to fuck off.

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.


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.