Mailbag #123

I’ve been getting a lot of emails that are like, “I got this trick and I’m not getting good reactions from it.” While I can sometimes give my theory on it, these can be hard to answer because while it might be the trick, it might just be you, or it might be the environment. So I can really only say how I might do the trick differently (or why I wouldn’t do the trick at all). Just FYI.

I’ve been doing the new Stitch trick for a few days now and the reactions have been pretty underwhelming. What gives? Will you be reviewing this in your newsletter? Or do you have any thoughts on how to get a better reaction with it? —RS

I won’t be reviewing this, no. I can see myself having the same issue you’re facing.

This is the sort of trick I would have been really drawn to years ago, but in recent years I’ve realized this is unlikely to get me the type of reactions I want from a trick.

Why?

Here’s what I think…

For a visual trick like this to be affective, there needs to be an openness and a clarity to the handling within the parameters of the trick.

What do I mean?

Well, here’s what I DON’T mean.

I don’t mean, “If you’re going to cut your finger in half, then you must do it without the tube. You must do it out in the open or everyone will just assume it’s a trick.”

That’s not what I’m saying.

What I mean is, if the parameters (or the conditions) of the trick are: “I can cut my finger in half when I place it in this tube,” that’s fine. But you can’t then be all cozy with how you display your bifurcated finger afterward. Not if you want to really affect people.

The “obvious” solution is that—depsite the tube—you must just be bending your finger in some way. If you don’t openly show your hand back and forth, then you’re not showing people what they want to see at that moment.

With visual effects, if the method for your affect doesn’t allow you to display to people the first thing they want to see to confirm it’s really happening, then you just have an optical illusion or a puzzle. You don’t really have a magic trick. Not a truly convincing one, at any rate.

It’s like this:

The impossible statement: “I have a really hot girlfriend!”

You don’t believe me. You want to meet her.

The conditions: “Ah, well, she lives in Canada. You can’t meet her in person.”

Now, I want to prove that impossible statement given the conditions.

The proof: We do a FaceTime chat with her. She says she’s my girlfriend. She says she’s in Canada.

That would be fairly convincing to you.

But what if we talked to her on FaceTime and she was sitting in a darkened room where you couldn’t see her? You would be unlikely to think I was really dating this beautiful Canadian model.

That’s sort of what’s going on here:

The impossible statement: “I can cut my finger in two and restore it.”

The conditions: “I just have to put it in this tube to do so.”

The proof: I put my finger in the tube, cut it in two, pull off the top part and show my hand all around.

You can’t do that last part with Stitch. And there’s no reason (other than the method) why you can’t or wouldn’t.

To me, that’s the trick’s weakness.

As a puzzle though, I think it’s still solid and entertaining and over quick enough. So I don’t think it’s a bad idea to do. Just don’t expect people to be, like, enchanted by it, because it’s not that sort of trick.

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When you talk about “housing” your tricks do you have something in place for tricks with full deck stacks as far as keeping them ready to go at all times?—CD

I only have a handful of effects in my repertoire that require a significant stack—that is to say, a stack that I can’t either get into on the fly or with 15 seconds or so with the deck in my hands.

If there is a trick in my repertoire that requires a full deck stack, then that means I will have a deck on display in my home that is stacked for that trick at all times.

This is the benefit of having a small display of normal decks in your house. You can have someone grab you a deck “at random” and they’ll be grabbing you a deck that is ready to go for some miracle.

Or, if you’re inspired to perform that particular trick, you can go and grab the deck yourself. You never have to excuse yourself to go set something up.

For me, the last step of rehearsing a trick with a significant stack in my repertoire is to reset the stack. This leaves that trick always “housed” in my deck display.

Emergence Idea

MH Writes:

I’m sure you’ve seen Vanishing’s new coin in glass. I have one headed my way, but I think this could have some fun uses if it was set up in another room similar to your haunted deck presentation.

Absolutely.

Imagine it like this…

You do a couple weak phases of coin to glass. The version where your hand is clawed over the top of the glass in a way that you would only hold it if you wanted to drop something from your palm into the glass.

This version of the trick has never fooled anyone because when faced with the question, “Is he transporting matter from one location to the other? Or is he dropping a coin from his hand that’s holding the glass in that weird way?” I’ve found that spectators usually choose the option that doesn’t require them to disturb their understanding of the laws of physics.

One structure I like to use frequently is to do a shitty version of a trick, then bemoan the fact that nobody really believes I have this power I’m demonstrating, and then do an impossible version of the trick.

So after doing the garbage version of coins to glass I’d say how much it bothered me that people don’t really believe I can translocate coins through the power of my mind. “Why are they so skeptical?”

Yes, I’m just being dramatic, and they know I’m just being silly, but it actually gives the trick a fairly decent meta-story. Instead of just, “I can make coins go to a glass,” which is like… okay, so what? The “story” becomes: “I can do this impossible thing, but no one believes me. So now I’ve come up with a way to demonstrate it that proves I can do it.” Because that’s a story about you as a human, not just a coin and a glass.

And I’m saying it doesn’t matter how jokey and over-the-top you play it, that “story” still works on people. They’re not going to think the story is “real,” but they’ll still find a way to make it relatable to them, because that’s what we do as humans.

So now you perform your “test conditions” version.

The glass is placed in a separate room.

You have them confirm no one else is in the room and the window is locked.

You set-up your friend’s phone so it records a close-up of the glass (and not, of course, the deck of cards nearby).

You have them confirm the glass is empty before you leave the room and close the door.

Outside in the hall, you make a coin disappear.

“Listen,” you say, and encourage them to put their ear up to the door.

Faintly, they hear a clinking rattle in the glass.

They can immediately enter the room and see the coin is now in the glass. Everything else is the same. You don’t have to touch anything. They pick up the glass and retrieve their coin.

They take their phone and watch back the video, and they have something close to irrefutable proof of a coin materializing and falling into an empty glass.

That would be super strong.

[The only potential issue I can think of is that the gimmick that shoots the coin makes a little noise. In real life, it’s probably not noticeable. But on a video they can replay over and over again, it might be. I’d have to hear it in real life to know. I wouldn’t be too worried about it because you can probably either mask the sound with some other ambient noise. Or recontextualize the noise as the sound of a coin “blipping” into existence. Again, I’d have to hear it to know exactly how much of an issue it is. But it’s not the sort of thing that would prevent me from buying it.]

The "I Know My First Name is Steven" Switch

On December 4, 1972, seven-year-old Steven Stayner was walking home from school alone. Because that’s something we used to be cool with 7-year-olds doing.

On his way home, a man approached him, gave him some religious material, and asked him if he thought his mom might be willing to donate some money to the church. Steven said yes and started walking home with the man to take him to meet his mother.

As they were walking to Steven’s home, another man pulled up in a car and offered to give them a ride because it had been raining. They agreed and got in the car with this other man.

Thus began the 7-year abduction of Steven Staynor. It was seven years of abuse and brainwashing, followed by an escape, a tragic early death, and a brother who turned out to be a serial killer.

It’s a crazy story, worth looking into if you like that sort of thing.

As awful as it all is, there was something somewhat clever about the abduction itself.

If you want to take a kid off the street and drive him to your house half an hour away, that’s not an easy task. The kid might run away, or yell and scream for help. And even if you do just manage to talk the kid into your car, there’s going to be a minute or two where you have to convince him to get in. When the kid shows up missing later, people might remember him talking to someone in a white Buick on that day.

So the kidnapper’s ploy was kind of smart.

He got a dimwitted friend to approach the kid on the street and pose as someone raising money for the church, and then ask if he could walk home with the kid to speak with his mother.

Now, a 7-year-old is most likely not going to be savvy enough to find this too suspicious. He’s not asking the kid to come away with him. In fact, he’s saying, “Take me to another adult—your mother.” That’s going to feel relatively safe.

Later on, when the car pulls up, there doesn’t need to be a discussion to get the kid in the car. The kid is just following along with this first guy that he now feels he “knows” in some way.

I know what you’re thinking…

But, Andy, how do we use this type of deception to switch a Rubik’s Cube?

A couple of newsletters ago, I said that I’d describe a technique I use for switching Rubik’s cubes (or any larger objects that might be hard to switch).

This is what I consider an “Everydayness Technique.’ That is, it doesn’t rely on some secret magic method, it relies on the seeming common-ness of the interaction to lower people’s guards.

Here’s how this one works. Assume I’m in a living room situation. Sitting on a couch with someone.

I have them mix up a Rubik’s Cube and hand it to me. “Let’s find a white corner piece,” I say, and rotate the cube around until I find a piece with a good mixture of other colors on that side. “This will work.”

I look to the end-table on my side of the couch, then turn back to them. “Is there a marker on your side?” They quickly look on their end-table and see nothing.

I get up and walk to a shelf on the other side of the room and move some objects around as if I’m looking for a marker there.

“Uhm… hold on,” I say.

I take a few steps into the kitchen, open the junk drawer, and come back with a Sharpie.

Of course, I also switched the cube for another one while I was in the kitchen.

Yes, I know, “leaving the room” doesn’t seem like a very clever way to switch something. But I’ve had shockingly good luck with this. Perhaps it’s too stupid for people to even consider, but in the theories I’ve collected from people regarding how a trick was done, they have yet to suggest I switched something while out of the room.

Here’s why I think this works. The implication is that if there was a marker near them or me or on the other side of the room, I never would have left the room. And if I can pull off that bit of casually looking for a marker, then their guard is down for when I step out of the room for a couple of seconds. (It’s best if they can still see and hear you somewhat.)

I’m not asking for the Rubik’s cube (or whatever) and then walking out of the room. I happen to be holding the Rubik’s cube when the need for a marker compels me to step out of the room.

Looking for the marker while I’m in the room is the part they’re pretty comfortable with. It’s the guy who walks up to the kid and says, “Can we go talk to your mom?”

But now that they’re comfortable with that part, the part that they might find sketchy otherwise (leaving the room aka “get in the car”) is easier for them to accept because it naturally follows something they’ve already bought into.

When using this switch with a Rubik’s cube, I like to identify a white corner piece I want them to initial before the switch. It’s a small thing, but I think it suggests it’s the same cube when I point out the white corner again where I want them to initial. It’s a small bit of fake continuity.

A couple tips:

1. To be clear, you need to choreograph it so the object is in your hands when you realize you need to step out of the room. You can’t decide to leave the room and then grab the object.

2. To take this technique to the next level, dry out a Sharpie. Now you can be very intentional by presenting them with the object and the Sharpie from the start. When it turns out that Sharpie doesn’t work anymore, you can look around the room, and then quickly step out with even more justification.

3. I developed this technique originally—and it works very well with—the concept of Anchored Deck Switches. For example, I have you shuffle the deck and I force the 4 of Clubs on you. I ask you to sign it, but can’t find a marker or it’s dried out. I step out of the room, deck still in hand, and switch the deck for a stacked deck minus the 4 of Clubs. The 4 of Clubs that gets selected from the shuffled deck and placed back into the stacked deck is the “anchor” that suggests this deck is only deck in play. The fact that the switch takes place as you leave the room with motivation to grab a marker so they can sign the only card they care about is what makes it difficult for them to even remember the deck was really out of sight.

Mailbag: Destiny Deal

Do you have any thoughts or ideas for Craig Petty’s Destiny Deal?

I’m not a fan of the handling 100% but I like that the specky gets to give them a real shuffle.

I also do a lot of magic with your Peek Backstage concept so that drew me to this trick.

The responses so far have been fine but not really super strong. Any thoughts or ideas for this one? —DT

I like the aspect of the trick that you noted, that there’s a genuine shuffle during the effect. I also like that there’s a genuinely free choice of card.

I don’t really love the handling either. I think taking the card from them and drawing their attention back to the deck isn’t a great moment when ALL they care about is if that card is their card.

On his Youtube, Craig showed a much better handling where the instruction card is held face-up the whole time.

He still suggests drawing their attention back to the deck after the card at their position has been added to your instruction card, but I’m not quite sure why. It’s unnecessary. The gimmicked card does a discrepant, but still fooling, switch for you. Drawing their attention away from the only thing they care about in that moment, is the last thing you want to do.

It would be like doing the Nest of Boxes and when you get to the last one you say, "Okay, give me that. Now double-check and make sure you didn't miss anything. Your ring isn't in any of those other boxes, correct?" And then you secretly load the ring when they turn away to check the other boxes. You wouldn’t do that, of course because it’s a terrible idea.

So I recommend Craig’s face-up handling, it’s a lot better than the version in the trailer. Take the card from them. Drop it on the instruction card. Wait a beat while you say something. Then turn them over.

Yes, it’s discrepant, but I’ve found people to be almost incapable of following along with what the orientation of things should be if they are in multiple orientations, and you then turn them over.

So the handling isn’t really an issue for me.

I do have issues with the presentation, however.

In DC’s email he says he likes to do tricks with “my” Peek Backstage concept.

That style of presentation—which I originally talked about here—is certainly something other people played around before me. I was just the person to codify it and name it.

The problem with Destiny Deal is that it doesn’t really have the feel of what I’m going for with a Peek Backstage.

To understand this, remember the posts I didn’t on Presentation vs. Context.

To quickly summarize-

Presentation: Is a motif or subject matter that is laid over a trick.

Context: Is a situation into which a trick is placed.

If I want to do a trick with a ghost presentation, I could use this pen and tell you a story about Happy the Ghost and have the pen move without anyone touching it. That’s a trick with a ghost presentation.

If I wanted to do a trick with a ghost context, I could take you to a run-down “haunted” motel near me and show you the room where this guy was killing prostitutes for over a decade. They say the room is haunted by their spirits. I make a little Ouija board by drawing the alphabet in a circle on a piece of paper and then resting the pen on top of a glass in the middle of the letters. As we call on the spirits, the pen would move by itself and eventually topple off the glass.

It’s the same trick, with the same theme, but in one case we’re just using the theme to dress-up the trick, and in the other we’re pulling the trick into the theme.

Destiny Deal is a Peek Backstage presentation. It’s the way you would do Peek Backstage if you were table-hopping or working at a wedding. Which makes sense because these are the environments Craig normally performs in.

But since I don’t perform professionally, I want my peeks backstage to feel legitimate. I want them to think they’re actually getting some insider information.

My first issue with this is that the instructions are on a playing card. Nobody thinks that’s how trick instructions come.

Simon Aronson had a great trick called Side-Swiped. That involved instructions on a card as well. With Side-Swiped though, the instructions become the spectator’s selected card. So even if they don’t buy this card as being legitimate at the start, by the end it makes sense that these instructions are on a card because they would have to be for the premise of the trick.

My issue with Destiny Deal is that the instructions are on a card only for the methodology.

Do you see what I mean?

You’re introducing something unusual, and something that doesn’t make much sense (magic instructions on a playing card) and then nothing happens—from the spectator’s perspective— that necessitates the instructions being on the card.

Now, you could say to yoru audience, “Every now and then, Bicycle includes the instructions for a card trick in with their decks. But they only sell these in certain magic shops or at magician’s conventions.”

Good! Now we’re back with something that’s justified and interesting. In fact, I’d say that’s very interesting. Special cards that Bicycle puts in special decks only to be sold in special places? Great.

Perhaps it can even come as a surprise to you. Start opening a deck before anyone’s paying much attention. Add the special card to the deck as you open it up. “Oh shit. This is cool.” Explain to them that these “trick instruction” cards only come in decks randomly that you get from special locations. “They’re in every 50 decks. Or 100 decks. Something like that.”

So we’ve justified the prop, and there’s a handling I’m happy with. So what’s the problem?

Unfortunately, we’re back in Peek Backstage presentation land… because these aren’t instructions for a trick…

They’re just the steps you would see if you were watching along with the trick. There’s no secret or insight on this card. There’s no peek behind the curtains, because this is literally exactly what they’re seeing in front of the curtain.

Here’s a page of fake instructions for a trick from an older book of mine…

In that trick you’re walking through the steps of a trick with someone as you “learn” it. The trick is supposed to make a card come to the top of the deck. But when you perform it, the card ends up going to the spectator’s pocket. (Because you accidentally turned two pages instead of one as you went through the instructions, causing you to accidentally perform Card to Pocket, rather than Card to Top of Deck.)

Notice there are a bunch of fake-o techniques mentioned in the instructions. The techniques listed are what make them instructions. Rather than just a description of what we can see happen.

It’s a simple fix. Penguin just needs to make a new instruction card. I’ll help you design it. (And yes, you can brand it as a Jerx/Petty production. You’re welcome.)

Imagine you’re going through the card, reading off the instructions. And the instruction that happens after you take the card from them is something like, “Misdirect their attention away from the card while you perform an MB Twist of 8 degrees.”

Now you drop their card on the instructions and hold out your palm to them innocently.

“I’m not going to bother misdirecting you away from this. That would be silly because you’ve seen the instructions. So the MB Twist looks like this….” You slowly turn your palm over and back. “And if that worked, this should be your card.” Turn the cards over and reveal their card.

Now instead of actually misdirecting them at that moment in the routine, you’re being so generous by not doing so.

To be fair, I think as the trick stands now, it’s perfectly fine for the situations Craig (and many magicians) perform in. It’s a professional performance, so everything is going to likely come off as “presentation” anyway. I’m trying to add elements of verisimilitude and mystery because those things play very well in casual, amateur performances where people don’t really know what could be real or not.

While I’m redesigning your prop Craig and Penguin…

1. Get rid of the heading “Steps to Perform an Amazing Card Trick.” I realize the point of this is so people understand what they’re looking at immediately from the other side of a restaurant table, but it makes the card look extra fakey. It should say something like. “Mystery Card Trick #14.” This implies there is a series of these things that exists in some manner in the real world. And not that this is just a prop for this particular trick.

2. I don’t think there’s any reason for the card to have a red back. At least not with the face-up version Craig demonstrates in his Youtube video. In fact, a red back only serves to confuse people of which card they’re looking at which moment. Make the back of the card an ad for the book this trick was supposedly taken from. “If you like this trick, you can buy the full collection…,” blah, blah, blah. Or make it say, like, “Mystery Card Trick Series. Collect all 52 card trick instructions in select decks of playing cards…,” blah, blah, blah, again. This makes it a card you can just carry with you and perform with any poker-sized borrowed deck.

Until October...

This is the final post in September. The first Monday in October isn’t until the 7th, so there’s a bit of break until then, but you’ll manage just fine. The next issue of the newsletter will come out on Sunday, the 6th.

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Some follow-up housekeeping…

The only sizes of the GLOMM shirts remaining are Small and Large and the remaining membership kits with those shirts will sell out before this site returns in October, I would guess. So if you’re interested in one of those sizes, snag it now. [UPDATE: Gone.]

Also, the Amateur at the Kitchen Table hardcover monograph is shipping out by the end of the month.

• If you’re a supporter…

• And you purchased this back in April…

• And you confirmed your shipping address via the email I sent you earlier this month…

Then expect an email with tracking data to come to you soon. If any of those things isn’t true. Then don’t expect it.

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J.S. writes…

I was thinking about your post about Housing My Repertoire and it reminded me something I like to do that you and your readers might be interested in.  

I have been into leatherworking for several years making various small items for friends and family as gifts.  One of my favorite gifts is to make up a Yahtzee set with 5 dice and one of my leather cups. But, I always build a magnet into the cup.  Now, I may never need to use that cup when I am visiting their house, but it’s nice to know that if I want to crumple up a dollar bill and go to town on a Chop Cup routine, I can.  They're hidden in plain sight.

This definitely goes a step beyond “housing” your tricks, into the idea of planting gimmicks in different locations. It’s more ambitious than I am, generally, but I still like it conceptually. And those cups are beautiful.

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Little Holes is a new trick from Roddy McGhie and Noel Qualter

I don’t have any comment on the trick itself.

What I want to ask is for magicians to keep in mind one of the GLOMM’s objectives when they’re naming their tricks: We’re trying to keep pedophiles out of magic.

Some of these trick names can end up confusing that process.

In the past, when we were at a magic convention, and we overheard someone say, “I love little holes!” We knew to keep our eye on them.

Now, if we hear someone say, “I can’t wait to get my hands on Little Holes,” we have to ask, How do you mean, exactly?

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See you all back here in October. Do you have your Halloween costumes planned? Due to my love of reading and magic, I think I might be Harry Potter.

My girlfriend is going as “sexy Craig Petty.”

Housing My Repertoire: Part Two - Rotational Housing and Homeless Tricks

Rotational Housing

In addition to the Houses I mentioned in Tuesday’s post, I have three Rotational Houses as well.

A “Rotational House” is a location that houses a single trick, but I have many tricks that could be held there. So I hold a trick in that location until I perform it, and then I rotate in a different trick.

Here are my current Rotational Houses:

1. The coin pocket in my pants, which holds any small gimmick (And today holds Double Deception.)

2. Inside whatever book I’m reading, where I keep a trick as a bookmark. (Which is currently Random Card Generator.)

3. Under the cellophane of a deck of cards in my messenger bag, where I keep a single gimmicked card. (Which today is Twilight Angels.)

Now, obviously if there’s a trick I’m really excited about performing that uses a small gimmick, then that’s the trick I’ll put in my coin pocket that day. But if there’s nothing particularly calling to me, then I’ll just put the next trick in my “coin pocket rotation” list into that pocket.

Sometimes I’ll bring a trick out and perform it that day, sometimes it will sit in its “rotational house” for weeks before the opportunity comes up to perform it. That’s fine.

The goal is simply to have a system in place where all the tricks in my repertoire are in a position to be performed at regular intervals, without me having to think about it.

That’s the whole purpose of this “Housing” concept.

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If this isn’t clear to you— if it just sounds like, “Have a place to put your tricks” —and you’re thinking, “So what?” It might help to understand my thinking by looking at a “homeless” trick.

Axel Hecklau has a great cap in bottle trick that’s been out for many years now.

But this isn’t a trick you can just have ready to go and do at any point in time. You have to prep the bottle and the cap.

So, maybe you prep the bottle and cap and then the trick “lives” in your refrigerator?

Well, you can’t really do that because if someone decides they want a Coke, they’re going to notice something weird going on with the bottle.

“Well, that’s okay. I live alone. No one really goes into my refrigerator but me. Even if I have people over.”

Okay, fine, but still this preparation won’t hold up to just being stored in your refrigerator for a couple of weeks or months.

So that means it’s a trick I can only do if I think to myself, “I want to do that cap in bottle trick this evening. I’m going to set that up so I can do it tonight.”

I don’t think most magicians would see that as an issue.

I see it as an issue only because I’m trying to construct a Carefree Repertoire. And that means a repertoire of tricks that are staged somewhere and ready to perform whenever the vibe is right. So all the tricks are ready to be deployed now or 8 months from now, so long as I’m in near the area where that trick is housed.

That means there are a lot of tricks I like that just don’t fit into my current performance philosophy. So I don’t bother holding space for them in my repertoire.

Outside of tricks that are crafted for a special occasion or with one specific person in mind (which wouldn’t be in my regular repertoire to being with), everything in my current repertoire is prepped and ready to go whenever I want. It’s very freeing. It means when things feel right, I can go into whatever trick is right for the moment.

A Rubik's Solve Presentation

“Have you seen this app? It’s pretty cool. If you get your Rubik’s Cube mixed up and can’t solve it, you can use this. I’ll show you. Do you have like a paper bag or plastic bag or something?”

So, yeah, you know what’s happening here. You download any Rubik’s solving app, combine that with a one-handed solve, and there you go.

In real life, I have the person reach in and grab out the phone and then reach in and grab out the cube for themselves. It’s shocking stuff. But with a charmingly absurd premise—the idea that there’s an app that physically solves a Rubik’s cube—that I think is much more interesting to people than the standard Rubik’s solve performance.

It’s good, clean, Christian fun for the whole family!