Mailbag #126

Last Friday’s post never got scheduled for some reason. So if you were wondering where it was, it was just an f-up on my end. There will be an extra post at the end of this month to make up for it.

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I know you’re not much of a fan of the classic force but I used the In and Out technique with the classic force today and it worked shockingly well. I used it with Vanishing Inc’s planetarium trick and the reactions I got with this version were far beyond when I just used the classic force by itself. Perhaps using it with the classic force is something you might want to suggest to people.—TL

Yeah, I’m not sure if it’s a matter of this technique working well with the classic force, so much as it is that it would work well with any force.

Combining deceptions is something I’ve been writing about for a while.

I believe that combining methods is like the Square-Cube Law. The Square-Cube Law tells us that when the size of something doubles, its mass doesn’t double. Its mass is eight times what it was before.

Combining methods is like that. When you have a trick that’s based on one deception and then add another to the mix, it makes the trick much more than twice as deceptive.

The In and Out Technique adds an equivocal beat to any force you might be doing (cross-cut, slip force, classic force, cull force). So if the force you’re doing isn’t already based on equivoque, then adding it to the forcing procedure can boost the deceptiveness significantly.

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In yesterday’s post you mentioned you keep only a small magic library. I’d be really interested (and I imagine the rest of your readers would be too) in knowing what titles you have on your shelf. —CC

I never love giving a specific list of stuff like this because it always ends up sounding much more definitive than it is. It sounds like I’m declaring The Jerx Must-Have Magic Books, when really I’m just saying, “these are the books that I personally like to revisit.” Nostalgia plays a big role in my choices, perhaps more so than the contents of the books themselves.

So here are some of the books I often return to, I’ve probably mentioned them all in the past (given that they are, in fact, the books I return to frequently).

Simply Harkey by David Harkey

This was one of, if not my first, real magic book. At the time, I didn’t know how different it would be from most other magic books, with it’s truly unique premises across a broad range of props.

I don’t do a ton of magic from this book. But I still find it inspiring to read through, and it bring me back to being 13-years-old.

If anyone knows David Harkey, tell him I want him back in the magic world, and I’ll do whatever I can to help make that happen.

As of this writing, Simply Harkey can only be found online used. Most often I see it somewhere between $100 and $150.

The Collected Almanac by Richard Kaufman and The Jinx by Theodore Annemann

The Collected Almanac is one of my other early magic books. The Jinx I found later in life. Both are examples of one of my favorite genres of books—compilations of magic newsletters. Harry Lorayne’s Apocalypse is another example (although I don’t own those books in hardcover). Compilations like these have the most re-readability for me. There’s such a wide variety of material and creators that you’re bound to stumble on something new that grabs you each time you return to it.

The 80s and 90s was the peak of the magic newsletter because of the advent of desktop publishing (and maybe cocaine). It was also before the magic video boom and the internet, so if you had a cool trick, the magic newsletters were one of the few outlets that you had to release it. That trick you see on Penguin now as a $15 instant download would have been in Apocalypse or Richard’s Almanac in 1986.

Richard’s Almanac, Apocalypse, and the Jinx (among others) also had personality. You got to know the people behind them over time, so there was a “realness” to the character behind the writing. It’s sort of like this blog, where you’ve gotten to know me over a decade. Often when people try and put personality into a stand-alone book, it comes off kind of fake or off-putting because it’s not something you’ve been gradually exposed to. It’s just someone writing with some weird energy out of nowhere, and you’re thinking, “Just write-up the stupid trick.”

The Collected Almanac has been reprinted and is available online for about $95.

Bannon’s Book

John Bannon has some classic effects, but even the ones that aren’t “hits” are still mostly really solid “album tracks.” Bannon is my comfort food of card magic. I’ll revisit his books every year or two and almost always find a new trick that calls to me.

Most of Bannon’s books can still be found for sale online.

The Art of Astonishment Books

I think it’s hard for younger magicians to understand the excitement that built up for these books over the course of months in the mid-90s. I don’t know any books these days that come close to it. There’s so much material in these books that you really can’t absorb it all in one read through (even if you take weeks to read it), which is why it’s a series I return to often.

All three books can be found at Vanishing Inc for $135 total.

Mythology Codex by Phill Smith

One thing I hate about magic books is they’re all so large that you’d look like a fucking lunatic if you were reading one on a bus or a park bench or in a coffee shop (where I spend hours every day). When I started writing books, one of the things I kept in mind was I wanted people to be able to put it in a bag and read it on vacation. You can’t do that with Mythology Codex. Your bag wouldn’t fit in the overhead compartment. Mythology Codex is more designed to bash someone’s skull in than to be read casually.

That being said, it’s a beautiful book and it has content that I find very rewarding to revisit.

You can still order this from Phill for 150 pounds.

There’s more to my library than these, but these are the books (other than my own) that I return to most frquently.

In & Out

This is a small bit of equivocal language that can work in a number of situations, but I’ll describe how you might use it with a marked deck and a force.

Give the deck to your friend and have them shuffle it up.

When they’re done, get a look at the markings on the top card.

“Okay, before we do anything, I’m going to write something down.”

“Before we do anything” isn’t technically true. They shuffled the cards. But you’ll never be called on that. Shuffling the cards at the start doesn’t feel like part of the effect any more than setting the table feels like part of dinner.

It’s at this time you set-up your premise and you write your prediction. (Hopefully your premise is something more interesting than, “I’m going to predict what card you’ll end up with.”) I like to give them what I wrote and have them put it in their pocket.

Tell them to pick up the deck.

“I want you to deal the cards at random into two piles. One here.” You point to a place that’s in front of them, but just slightly off to the side.

“And one here.”

You point to a place that’s between you two on the table.

“Deal randomly, don’t just deal back and forth. Just place each card wherever feels right.”

Your friend will start dealing and one of two things will happen.

They deal the first card to themselves.

“Yeah, keep going through the whole deck. We’ll use whatever cards you keep for yourself. [Gesture to the pile in front of them.] And get rid of the rest.”

They deal the first card to the middle of the table.

“Yeah, keep going through the whole deck. We’ll only use the cards you put in play. [Gesture to the pile in the middle of the table.}

That’s the little verbal deception.

They’re either keeping cards for themselves. Or they're putting cards “in play” between the two of you. Both interpretations feel perfectly natural.

Slide the unneeded pile out of the way (or have them do it if it’s the one closest to them). Have them take the pile you’re working with and do the cross-cut force.

Recap for them.

“Remember the first thing we did was I wrote something down and you put that in your pocket and I haven’t gotten near it. Then you decided at random which cards you wanted to keep. [Or, “Then you decided at random which cards to put in play.”] At this point, what I wrote down may be completely wrong depending on what cards you kept for your self [Or, “Depending on what cards you chose to put in play.”] If it references any of these cards [turn over the unused pile] I was doomed before we even started.”

This process is related to a technique I wrote about in my second book and a chapter in the upcoming book as well. When you slow down a force and add more stages to it, then there are seemingly more failure points for you along the way. It’s not just, “How could he know I would cut to that card.” It’s also, “How could he know that card would even be in that pile to begin with.” We’re compounding the things you seemingly couldn’t know.

The key here is to not use any words to describe the piles at first. Don’t say, “Deal a pile in front of yourself and one in the middle of the table.” You don’t want them interpreting what these piles might me. “Ah, a pile in front of myself. That must mean it’s my pile.” Instead, you just point. “Deal a pile here and here.”

Once they’ve dealt just one card, you can immediately start using language that defines the piles.

If you want, you can also have them shuffle part way through their dealing.

Here we’re combining the deceptions of a marked deck, a subtle equivocal statement, and a cross-cut force. Piling these on top of each other makes it very difficult to unravel.

Carefree Update

Here are a couple of updates as I continue to refine my repertoire and my collection of magic items along the Carefree Philosophy. These ideas are specifically in regard to streamlining the physical magic tricks I purchase and keep. To me, there is a psychological weight involved with having 100 gimmicked decks at home. Or having 100 special props in a closet somewhere.

If you see yourself as a magic collector, this isn’t an issue for you. Having a large collection of props and magic gimmicks brings you happiness (I would hope). But I don’t think of myself as a collector.

I’m not someone who wants to invite you into my home to see my large display of antique swords.

I’m someone who wants to go out and stab people in the street.

You see the difference? I’m happy to have a sword collection as large as it needs to be to facilitate more stabbing. But beyond that, I’m not looking to collect more items.

This is true with me with magic as well. I have a small collection of magic books because I think you get new value from a good one each time you revisit it—and because I think a book collection has an aesthetic value I appreciate. But other than that, I want to keep the physical magic items I own as minimal as possible while still having what I need to provide a wide range of magical experiences for people.

Here are two types of magic props/gimmicks I’ve been eliminating from my collection. Perhaps this may inspire you in ways to trim some of the fat from the assemblage of magic in your home (if that’s your wish).

Non-Unique Unitaskers

I wasn’t exaggerating above. I had over 100 gimmicked decks in my collection.

Some of those decks have multiple uses. Like a Svengali Deck, or a Cheek to Cheek Deck which can be used for various types of effects.

Some of those decks were unitaskers, like the Haunted Deck. Uni, meaning one. One task. The decks only did one thing. The Haunted Deck cuts itself without you touching it. That’s the trick. You can present that in a number of different ways. But it still is really just used for that one thing.

One of my first steps in slimming down my collection was getting rid of all non-unique unitaskers. Eliminating down to one Haunted Deck. Eliminating down to one color-changing deck. Do I really nead Card-toon, Card-toon 2, and Fart-toon? Probably not.

Then I looked at the effects these decks can produce more broadly. I had eight or so decks where the cards would be blank and then print, or normal cards would become blank, or all the cards would become blank except the card the spectator named, or something like that. The effects weren’t necessarily identical, but they were close enough that I wouldn’t perform them for the same person. So again, I got rid of all but one.

Then finally, once I had gotten down to a single deck for each broad category of effect, I then asked myself if I could replicate the effect somewhat with a borrowed deck. If the answer was that I could get about 80% close to the effect with a borrowed deck, then I eliminated even this final gimmicked deck.

I can’t get 80% of the way to a specially made color changing deck with a borrowed deck.

But I feel I can get *)% of the way to a gimmicked ACAAN with a borrowed deck. So, for that reason, I didn’t hang onto any gimmicked ACAAN decks.

Using this criteria allowed me to cut down over 100 gimmicked decks to 26. And I’ll probably eliminate some of the remaining ones in the future.

“Everyday Object” Props

This has been a hard one for me to accept. But the moment you do a trick with something—even if it’s something that exists in the real world—it will likely be seen as a magic prop. Unless it’s completely native to the environment.

I’ve known this for some time, but I kind of want it not to be true.

I bought this trick years ago.

It’s a two-phase routine with hotel business cards. First you tell them which hotel they’re thinking of, then you predict which hotel they’ll select.

It’s based on similar routines with playing cards. But aren’t hotel business cards so much more interesting and memorable than playing cards?

And, as the ad says, the props are “totally realistic.”

The problem is, none of that matters. Especially in social magic, which is supposed to have a natural feeling.

If the cards were completely normal and 100% examinable, it still wouldn’t matter. The fact that you have them at all means they’re for a trick and therefore it’s going to feel like a trick.

I now ask myself when looking at a trick with props: “Does anyone carry this in real life?” Does anyone carry bottle caps? Or a stack of receipts. Or a page torn from a magazine?

These are ordinary objects, in a way. But it’s not ordinary to carry them around.

At worst, people will believe the objects are fake or gimmicked.

At best, they’ll see you as someone carrying around little magic props to show people tricks. It’s not the best look.

I actually find it much more natural and realistic to say:

“Here’s something bizarre I bought off the dark web. Watch this weird shit it can do,”

than it is to say:

“Here are five, normal gym membership cards.”

I understand the world of that first statement. A world where people find weird objects online, buy them, and carry them around to show people.

I don’t understand the world of the second statement. One where you’re supposedly carrying around regular objects that no one carries with them, and then acting like it’s normal to do something impossible with these objects no one carries with them.

Again, this is more of a social magic concern. If I was doing a formal show, then yes, maybe I would gather a bunch of hotel business cards to present something to you. But in a real world interaction, I would not.

Working through my collection of tricks with this mindset allowed me to clear out a bunch of effects.

If you have some minimalist tendencies and are looking to flush out some of the physical magic props, tricks, and gimmicks that you’ve accumulated over decades like I have, you may get some benefit out of putting your props through these filters.

Being Yourself

We don’t make enough about the fact that—after decades of performing magic specials at the pinnacle of the art form—this is how David Copperfield’s final magic special ended.

Feeling the pressure from David Blaine, Copperfield chose to end this special with a non-magic stunt, The Tornado of Fire.

This “stunt” involved—from what I can tell—standing relatively still for under ten seconds.

It’s short enough to gif.

If there was any potential danger to this stunt, it’s not obvious in that four minute segment. He couldn’t even fall into the fire if he wanted to, given that he was being held in place by the guys on opposite sides of him.

At the end of the sequence, David yells, “I’m hot” which doesn’t do much to sell the supposed peril he just faced. He sounds like me on any given August afternoon. Or when I open the oven to see how my stuffed-crust Digiornos pizza is coming along.

Artistically, it was a total failure too. A stunt that lasts 8 seconds where you can’t see the “star” the whole time? That’s what you’re going to end the special with?

The lesson here is: Be Yourself.

Instead of an earth-shattering orgasm, Copperfield’s last special ended with a wispy fart, because he was trying to do what Blaine was doing.

Being yourself is even more important when performing socially. There’s nothing more unsettling when someone starts being a “character” in a casual scenario.

Just be you.

Ah, yes, Andy. I see what you’re saying. Don’t put on some bizarre character when you’re dealing with your friends and family. Just be an amplified version of yourself.

No. Not even that. Not amplified. Just be you. Be your real personality. Let everything feel kind of normal except this bizarre thing you’re showing them.

But Andy, my everyday personality isn’t that interesting. I need to put on a bit of a persona to really make the experience entertaining.

Okay, then you’re focusing on the wrong thing. Work on your everyday personality so that it’s more interesting and engaging to people in general. Needing to play a role and show people tricks to get them to pay attention to you is no way to go through life.

Mailbag #125

[Craig] Petty had plenty of nice things to say about you in today’s video. I wondered how you took his comments, did they seem genuine to you? I’ve never been certain about your feelings on Petty.

And what about his attacks on Flom from the same video? —MF

Do his comments about me seem genuine? Yeah, I thought they were genuine. But to be honest, if anyone ever says anything nice about me in any context it never really occurs to me to question their motivations. That would feel like a weird way to go through life. I’m very fortunate with the way I’m wired that nice comments make me happy but negative comments have zero effect on me. So it wouldn’t be like me to question a compliment.

As far as my feelings about Craig, I have no issues with the guy. I get a lot of hate for him in my email but I don’t harbor any negative feelings for him myself. There are a couple of his effects that I use somewhat frequently. Others aren’t for me or my performing environments. I don’t watch all of his videos, but I do watch one or two a week when they seem like they’re on a subject that I have interest in or he’s performing a trick I’m curious about, and I’ve always found them valuable.

He’s a polarizing guy, for whatever reason. But that makes magic more fun, in my opinion. I think it’s funny when he gets all riled up, or someone gets all riled up about him.

I end up mentioning him more than most magicians on this site. But that’s just because I’m doing commentary on magic, and to do commentary you need touchstones. And because he puts out so much content, he provides more potential things for me to comment on than pretty much anyone else.

Craig’s biggest issue, from my perspective, is that he’s not someone who wants to self-edit. He puts out 15 videos a week. He makes 9 hour trick tutorials. He releases many tricks every year. And because no one could be consistently brilliant, his greatest ideas get mixed with his good ideas and with his ideas that are sort of less inspired. This ends up bringing down his “batting average” when you compare him to someone who releases just their best ideas. So maybe he doesn’t get his due because of that. But I think that’s his style. He’s almost like a human brainstorm session. And he leaves it up to you to sort out what you think are his best ideas.

I’d be curious, as an exercise, how it might go for Craig if instead of releasing 15 videos a week, he released one 90-minute video called The Craig Petty Show which would have an interview, some reviews, some live performances, discussions, rants or a monologue, etc. So, essentially, his daily video segments but just greatly redacted, and repackaged with added structure and production quality. It’s probably a bad idea for youtube engagement, though.

As far as his thoughts on Justin Flom go, I thought they were fair. I didn’t really see them as an “attack.” I know Justin loves magic, but other people who also love magic are free to take issue with what he does.

I haven’t seen enough of Justin’s online videos to know what he’s exposing or how he’s going about it. If I look at his youtube shorts in order of popularity, I don’t see any real exposure in the first 25 videos. The first “exposure” video I see is probably this one, which shows D’lites.

That’s not exactly the sort of thing that would get me riled up, but once you have any element of exposure in your content, you’re giving people the right/opportunity to get upset about it if they want. I’m not a fan of exposure content. But I also don’t believe it’s that much of an issue unless you’re performing the exact trick soon after. For the social magician, it’s far better to focus your energy on your own work than worrying about what’s happening on tik-tok.

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Any idea when the next drop in the Good Enough Canon can be expected? —MO

Do you have a schedule in mind [for the Good Enough Canon]? I’m sure it’s a lot of work but I loved your 21 Card Trick piece and I’m looking forward to what’s next. —AC

If you let this project fall by the wayside after the first entry I will haunt your ghost.—CB

These are a few of the messages I’ve received in the last month asking about the Good Enough Canon, which was a project I mentioned a year ago. The idea was to go through the list of card plots and find a “Good Enough” version of each plot. One that was strong and fooling, not overly difficult, and ideally impromptu. The first entry in the canon was a version of the 21 Card Trick I put in a newsletter earlier this year.

I’ve been asked quite a few times now when this will come back.

The answer is… don’t hold your breath.

The hours of research, practice, testing out the variations, evaluating them, and working on the presentation is kind of overwhelming.

With the current schedule I’m on, it would take me decades to go through the full list of card plots. So it will probably become a project I work on in the future when I don’t have the site, newsletter, books, and outside work to do. It might be its own book in the future once things settle down.

Until November...

This is the final post until November. Regular posting resumes Monday, November 4th. The next Love Letters newsletter for subscribers will be sent on the 3rd.

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GLOMM Lodge #4, The Otters, has now been established in Sacramento, CA.

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Great Moments in Patter

“Nah, never seen one. What even is one?”

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What’s your favorite card color change? The Erdnase color change? The Shapeshifter? The Snap change?

My favorite is definitely the Triple Changing Pedestal.

What could be more magical than saying, “Hold on, let me go get my everyday card pedestal. The one we all have in our homes to rest cards on,” and then doing the impossible with that common object?

And you get the bonus effect of the card magically rotating 45 degrees.

And guys, just because you can get chicks with this type of strong magic, doesn’t mean you should. Be cool and don’t abuse this power.

Also, keep in mind, if you flip it over and shove it up your ass like a buttplug, it’s EDC.

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Hey all, have a great rest of your October. If you do anything cool costume-wise or magic-related for Halloween, let me know about it.

Otherwise, I’ll see you next month as we move from the spookiest part of the year to the giving-thanksiest part of the year (in the U.S., at least).

Chicken Scratch

Here’s a nice prediction idea that came to me via Nathan Wilson. It’s the sort of thing I like in that it’s couched in a sort of typical magical performance, but then it takes an unexpected left turn.

Imagine

You have your friend scroll to a random article on the home screen of CNN or the NY Times or any site like that.

You ask them to think of any word in the headline to the article they randomly scrolled to and to concentrate on that word.

You grab a nearby piece of paper or napkin and—after a few moments of focusing—you write down a word.

“Does the word you’re thinking of start with an E?” you ask.

No.

“It’s not ‘Egypt’?” you say.

No.

“Damn. This was one of those mornings I woke up, and I felt like my mind was really on top of things. You know? Like I’ve been practicing this stuff and some days I really feel like my mind is processing things and anticipating things on another level. Today was one of those days, so I thought I might get this one. Can I see the headline? I want to see if I can pick out the word you’re thinking of.”

Your friend shows you the phone.

“Hmmm…,” you say. “No. I’m not getting it. Was it ‘mystery’? That’s just a guess. No? Oh… ‘unravel.’ Okay.”

You look more closely at the phone.

“Wait… what is that? This picture…? I’ve seen that before.”

Your face scrunches up a little as you try and put the pieces together.

“What the… wait…,” you grab the prediction you just wrote and turn the paper over. On the opposite side of the paper or napkin is a doodle you were distractedly doing earlier in the interaction.

Your doodle matches up with the image from the article they randomly selected.

“Fuck, that’s crazy. I knew I was feeling some kind of weird energy today.”

Depending on how they respond, you can go deeper into describing the different “energies” associated with reading someone’s mind as opposed to “seeing the future.” And how you’re not really familiar with these things enough to differentiate them all. But you definitely felt something weird this morning… etc., etc.,

Method

This is just a presentation for Inertia by Marc Kerstein.

I think the key is to make your doodle abstract. It’s not like, “Oh, I was drawing a picture of a bear in a tree and you randomly stopped on a bear in a tree!” No. You’re just drawing simple lines and shapes that end up matching with the image they’re looking at in an impressionistic way.

Looking at the image upside down first can further delay exactly how closely your image matches, to sort of give an extra bit of drama to the final reveal.

Below is Nathan’s original email to me…

During dinner, you absentmindedly draw on a napkin. You never bring any attention to it, just doodling. I then have this presentation to get people to think of words and try to mentally send them to me. But instead of them writing it down this time, I have them scroll through a news website and find an interesting word. This, of course, is Inertia.

The trick continues by you messing up the word, and when they show you the image, you seem confused. You aren't confused that you got the word wrong—mind reading is hard—but that the image looks so darn familiar. That is when you look at your napkin and realize that your doodle is a pretty close match to the image of the headline they selected. 

I have only done this once, and it was presented more as a trick with a prediction in an envelope I gave them earlier that day. But the doodling seems way more interesting to me.