Drawing Room Inceptions by Landon Stark

Today I’m sharing a trick from Landon Stark from his book, The Stark Contrast.

Landon is a magician in Dallas, Texas. His website makes the claim that he is the #1 magician in Dallas-Fort Worth. I don’t know how accurate that is. Marty Westerman (aka Hollywood the Clown) has a perfect 5 star average on GigSalad

Am I saying Marty is necessarily better than Landon?

Hey, I’m not saying anything. I think that 5-star average speaks for itself.

Landon has two books available. The Stark Arts, which is free on Penguin. And the Stark Contrast, which is free-ish, at $4.15.

Regarding the trick I’m sharing today, Landon writes:

Drawing Room Inceptions is a worker piece that I've been performing since George Bush was in office. Much like 9/11, you will never forget this trick. DRI isn’t the best trick of the book but definitely my favorite. Using an anachronistic toy that most people know, you can perform a variety of feats. 

As for other tricks from the book to highlight, he says:

More notable tricks from my book would be Candy Cigarettes. I love the simplicity of this pocket miracle. Shady is another banger of an effect that shouldn’t be overshadowed (pun intended).

Normally I would say, “If you like this trick, consider purchasing the full book.” But hell, the full book is $4.15. Even if you just find this trick mildly interesting, it’s probably worth picking up the full ebook at that price.

Drawing Room Inceptions

A Modern Twist on the Spirit Slates

The Trick:

A prediction is thought of, and a magician divines it using an etch-a-sketch.

History:

I was always a big fan of the parlor classic, chalk spirit slate but unless you are doing a seance or you're Steve Cohen (or both), it never really matched my style. I devised an anachronistic throwback using a favorite American toy, the Etch-a-sketch (or as I call it, the first iPad).

You will need:

• A standard etch-a-sketch (I bought mine at Walmart for $10)

• Wet erase pen

Setup:

For this example, let us say you forced a card or better yet, you “pre-showed” a celebrity name on a spectator to later be called out. A great source for preshow material is Before We Begin by Asi Wind. We will use Michael J. Fox for the explanation. You will write Michael J. Fox in large text on the face of the etch-a-sketch using the wet eraser marker.

You will then turn the nobs until it covers the letters. You should end up with a mess that camouflages the reveal word.

When you are ready for the reveal, all you do is shake the etch-a-sketch and the magnetic sand will clear leaving the dry erase markings.

[The self-restraint used to avoid making a Michael J Fox “shake” joke during this whole explanation is remarkable. If you thought of making a joke about his disability, then shame on you. Just shame.]

Additional ideas: I shared this concept with a close-up magician friend of mine, and he adapted it into his strolling set. Using a mini etch-a-sketch found at most novelty stores, you now have a pocket miracle. You can do the same effect that clips on your keychain.

Free Advertising Update

Here is how free advertising will work in the future for people with multi-trick book or video releases.

First, you identify a trick you're happy with me sharing on the site. The trick should:

a. Be something that's not available elsewhere online for free.

b. Be one of the better tricks or one of your favorite tricks from the book.

I'm not asking you to give away your best trick. Or even one of your top few tricks. But it behooves you to share something good. (And don't you want to be behooved?) First because it will get more eyes on the post. And second because we are framing this as "one of your best or favorite tricks" from the release. If what you're offering is something forgettable, or kind of a "throwaway" effect, then it's not going to reflect well on the overall release. I can bring the eyes and the focused attention to your release, but only you can make it look attractive to a potential buyer. Ultimately, the power of this "ad" is going to be on the strength of the trick you submit.

In addition to submitting a trick for posting, please answer the following questions. Write as much as you want, but only a sentence or two is needed.

1. What do you like so much about the trick you're sharing today?

2. What other tricks from the release do you want to draw special attention to?

Question 1 allows you to highlight the strengths of what you're sharing.

Question 2 can create some excitement and make people want to pick up your product.

If answering two questions is too much work for you... oh well. 🤷‍♂️ Look, I don't need these posts. I have plenty of content for the site. I offer this because I think it's a win-win-win for everyone involved. A free (hopefully good) trick for the readers, 1000s of eyes on your product that you might not get otherwise, and an easy posting day for me.

Tomorrow we will have our first taste of someone taking advantage of the new policy.

Indirectly Creepy

A point that I read multiple times in magic books and message boards in the past was about how the “perfect” card trick would be: They think of a card, and you name it. And the person who was writing the book or message board post would explain how good or bad a certain trick was based on how close it got to this “perfect” card trick.

That logic used to make sense to me, but I no longer believe it.

If you could really just name a card someone was thinking of, it would be interesting for about 80 seconds. After that point, what would your friends possibly think?

1. You have a very dumb and useless supernatural ability.

2. You have the ability to genuinely “read” what card people are thinking of, perhaps by picking up on subtle cues they’re giving. It’s not supernatural. But it’s also not that interesting after a few times. “Oh, I guess he can do that.” They’ll think.

3. There’s still some sort of trick to it.

Those are pretty much the three options they have. I’m sure there is some hypothetical situation where the absolutely most direct effect is the best. But as far as doing something entertaining or artistic for people, that’s almost never the case.

And because you don’t have true superpowers, the most direct effect is going to have some sort of explanation. And by going too direct, you can often lead people right to a solution.

Here’s an example of when being too direct doesn’t work..

It starts with a creepy thing a friend of mine was doing.

When he would be out somewhere at a coffee shop or bar or party (he’s in college), and he saw an attractive woman, he would sneakily take her picture.

Then he would use a site like facecheck.id to find that woman’s social media based on the picture he just took.

So now he had her name and some details about her.

He would then go and talk to her and mention he was trying to do this thing where he could determine people’s names just by looking in their eyes. Could he try it with her?

He’d stare in their eyes for a moment and say, “Diana,” or whatever.

They would be shocked for a second, but then say that he must have overheard it or asked someone or recognized her from somewhere or seen her online or something. It was too direct, so they came up with a direct solution.

So he tried to do something subtler, since he had her social media he could see what sort of food she liked or if she rooted for a particular team or something. Revealing this information worked better, but there was still a sense that he must have found out the information somewhere. And because this information was publicly available on her social media, it’s not a huge leap to think maybe somehow he found her page.

So still not great reactions.

I told him to use it as part of a two-phase one-ahead trick.

Introduce himself. Tell them about this thing he’s learning where he’s trying to pick up on people’s names, blah, blah, blah. Ask if they’re willing to let him try.

Say that he wants to start off with something easier, a number. “Can you think of like a 4-digit number for me? Like a pin code. It can be an actual one you’ve used in the past, but I’ll want you to share it with me in a moment, so feel free to just make one up.”

[One of the things I like about magic is just lying and spinning justifications depending on the trick. “Numbers are easier to pick up on. They’re more straightforward. They’re not clouded by emotional resonance, like letters and words,” may be true in one trick. “Numbers are more difficult to pick up on, because they don’t have the emotional resonance of letters and words,” might be my logic in another situation.]

He has her think of the number, and he takes her wrist and holds her hand over the table as he counts off the numbers, moving her hand into a different position for each number.

Then he writes something down and folds it up. “What was the number. 1566? Ahh… okay… I was close. But that’s good, that gives me an understanding of how your thoughts feel.”

Now he has her think of her name (or her pet’s name, or something else he creepily figured out). He repeats the wrist holding and moving the hand around while he recites the alphabet this time. Writes something down and folds that paper up too, placing it with the other piece.

“Okay, so what is your name?”

Diana

“Oh good. I wasn’t totally confident because I didn’t get the number just right….”

He grabs the pieces of paper up and unfolds the number one.

“I had 1568, not 1566."

Unfolds the other one.

“But I did get your name right. That was great. Thank you for helping. You’ve got a vibrant energy. Let me get your number and let’s fuck each other’s brains out sometime.”

That last line is not a direct transcription, but more my interpretation of how he’s hoping things will generally go.

But again, this is an example of indirectness creating a stronger trick. I think if he found a solid premise for this, it would be even better. But even just adding some process creates a stronger moment of magic than the direct version. The indirect version involves asking for more information, and writing something down, and not showing what you’re writing, and things we try to remove from our tricks. But it’s stronger. It gives the spectator more to get tangled up in, so they can’t just say, “I guess he overheard someone say my name.”

Yes, the “real” magician would point at the person and tell them their name. But you’re not a real magician. And using the “real magician” as a model in a world where they don’t exist is not actually beneficial in creating the strongest and most entertaining magic.

Mailbag #127

I know you said that you were interested in eventually checking out Josh’s new memorized deck work, and I was wondering if you’ve been following any of the initial reviews and impressions. The main area of contention being discussed on the Cafe is the fact that the stack can’t really be displayed face up. You’ve made clear your feelings about that inspectability of props for the casual performer, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts on how you feel about a memorized deck that can’t be casually displayed to be “random”.—FB

I wouldn’t leave Josh’s stack in a wide ribbon spread on the table for people to examine for very long.

But to be fair, in my decades of performing, the amount of times I’ve spread a deck of cards in a wide ribbon-spread to be examined is almost never. It’s not something I really do. I spread the cards from hand to hand. And when doing that, I would have zero issue with using Josh’s stack.

You know how people who don’t like rap or country or polka will say about songs in that genre, “These all sound alike!” That’s because, when you don’t have a familiarity with something, it all kind of blends together because you’re not accustomed to picking up on the nuances of that thing.

As magicians, we see an “obvious” pattern in these cards. Laypeople won’t. I only perform for non-magicians, so that’s all I care about.

Years ago, in our focus group testing, we tried to test how long you could leave a Si Stebbins set deck in front of people before they noticed anything about.

So a Si Stebbins deck was false shuffled.

1. Then spread between the magician’s hands face-up.

2. Then given to the spectator to look through while we said, “Take a look to make sure they’re well mixed.”

3. Then spread in a wide ribbon-spread along the table.

4. Then we would say, “Is that fair”

5. And finally, “Do you notice any pattern in the cards at all?”

This isn’t precisely what we did, because I don’t have the exact details of this test in front of me. But this is pretty close.

The question was, at what step along the way will they bust us? We would wait a beat at each step to give them a chance to question anything. (And they had been lectured that we wanted them to try and catch us out on things.)

I think we only tried this a couple dozen times because no one ever really noticed anything—not even the red/black pattern—until we specifically asked them to look for a pattern. And even then it wasn’t everyone who noticed it.

Mostly, people’s eyes just are absorbing a bunch of colors, letters, and numbers. I don’t think they’re really processing anything.

So, yes, I’m hypersensitive about inspectabiliy, but I’m not super concerned about people noticing patterns in the cards. Especially given the casual way I handle cards and perform.

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I love the gift card crawl.

This might ruin it, but it’s an opportunity for a sort of unknown personal. When you get together, you add up the total value of all the gift cards, and it matches a prediction. Seems like something you could just drop in as you are getting ready to go on the crawl. You have all the cards, someone (you) wonders how much you have in total, somebody adds it up, it matches the numbers drawn by your nephew on a piece of paper on your fridge, that sort of thing. —PM

Yeah, the opportunity is there for something like that. I wouldn’t do it the first year, or else it will feel like that’s the reason why you organized this thing. Let the novelty of this type of interaction carry things for the first year or two. Then maybe introduce some ways to spice it up.

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Re: Is It Fun to Be Fooled

I just read your mini-essay on this topic. And not sure if you were aware, but Michael Close wrote a seminal essay on this topic in one of the Workers books, and his logic always bothered me. He basically contends, as does your friend, that it's NOT fun to be fooled because (I'm paraphrasing, but I recall something close to this) "If it was fun to be fooled, Richard Nixon would still be president."

I took issue with this, and mentioned it to Mike, and he wrote a clarification/modification to his position in his recent Paradigm Shift books, and he basically comes to a similar conclusion that you do. Anyway...I know your essays often break new ground and explore topics that have never been fully fleshed out before...so thought you might like to know about this.—JJ

Thanks for the reference. I assumed this was something that had been discussed in the literature (or, at least it should be… it’s like a foundational question of the art form). I didn’t remember Michael’s original essay, but I must have read it at one point (unless I only went through his Workers series on video 🤔).

I’ve been thinking more about this question. I sometimes think people come to conclusions like:

• People don’t like to be fooled.

• People just want to know secrets.

• People think magic is corny.

And they tell themselves this because:

• People don’t like to be fooled by them.

• People just want to know their secrets.

• People think their tricks are corny.

So instead of thinking of it as their own failure, it’s a failure of the art itself.

But I have bad news for you. In my experience, people love good magic. They like being fooled by it. While on some level they want to know the secret, they understand the value of the mystery as well. And they think really good magic is cool as hell.

Magic is often portrayed as lame, and magicians as dorks, in popular culture because there are a lot of dorks doing lame magic. This is not an issue with magic. It’s an issue with dorks.

Reminder...

This is just a reminder that I’ll be taking January off from working on the site. It will be my first extended break from the site in a few years. My “time off” will actually be spent writing the next book that is going to be sent to all Rich Uncle Millionaire level supporters next May.

If you’re at all curious, the general framework I work in for creating a book looks like this:

There are 18 months between supporter books.

For the first 12 of those months, I’m creating ideas for tricks and presentational techniques and thinking about premises and then testing those ideas out on people to see which ones seem to connect with people and which ones don’t.

On average, I try to test out 3 things each day during this time. So, let’s say 1100 total interactions. Some ideas get tested once and dumped. Some get tested dozens of times. And when I say “tested,” I usually mean “performed.” Although sometimes it also refers to actual testing, like working with laypeople to really break down what aspect of at trick they liked or didn’t like, what fooled them or didn’t fool them, etc.

The next five months, I continue regular performing of the new material. I whittle down the ideas for the next book to about 20-30. I outline the chapters and start to identify the needed illustrations.

Then in the final month, that’s when I actually write the book. I essentially make no other plans for the month and work on the book every day. I may go on a couple of retreats and rent a room or a house somewhere, just to put myself in different environments, but beyond that I’m just focused on writing.

You might think, “Well, Andy, you have 18 months, and 25 chapters or so, why not just write a chapter or two every month? Pace yourself.”

You would think that would be the right thing to do. But I’ve found it works better for me to lay it out like this. You need to have an idea for something, let it sit in your brain for a while, go out and practice it and test it out, then let it sit for a little while longer, then write it up. To be so regimented that I could do that on a rolling three-week schedule is not something I think would work very well. At least not for me. Especially not with writing 250 posts for this site and 400 pages of newsletters in that time as well.

It’s easier to do the books altogether in phases: 1. Creating and testing. 2. Refining and planning. 3. Writing.

And that’s why I need to take January off.

You wouldn’t want to see the posts here if I had to do them at the same time as writing the book.

It would just be like…

Hey, is this anything?

Is It Fun to Be Fooled?

In 1937, Horace Goldin put out a book whose title dubiously claimed…

The question is… Is it?

A magician stating how “fun” it is to be fooled reminds of those pedophiles who try to convince us that kids like being molested by 46-year-olds. I mean, it’s an awfully self-serving position to take.

But, I think you can make an argument they’re right. (The magicians, I mean. The pedos should burn.)

I was having a conversation with someone last week who gave up magic decades ago. “People don’t enjoy being fooled,” he said. “Give me one situation where people like to be fooled?”

“A magic trick,” I said.

“No, I mean another situation,” he said. “You can’t use that as an example. That’s the thing we’re arguing about. My point is people don’t like being fooled which is why they don’t generally like magic. They watch it to puzzle it out. Or hoping you’ll tell them how it’s done. If people liked being fooled there would be a bunch of other things they did in their life to feel fooled.”

“Well, no,” I said. “People don’t like to be fooled in most cases. But magic is the ‘safe’ way for them to explore feeling fooled, mystified, confused, or whatever. The way to be entertained by those emotions rather than threatened by them. People don’t like being scared, but they go to haunted houses and horror movies. People don’t like being sad, but they’ll watch a tearjerker or read a sad book. People don’t like to be in danger, but they’ll go on a roller coaster to get the feeling of danger. I don’t think people like being fooled generally but I do think they like it in the right context.”

Of course, this must be something that’s covered in some magic theory book somewhere, but it was my first time putting it together for myself. As humans, we like playgrounds where we can safely experience negative emotions. And magic is such a playground.

People don’t like to be fooled. People don’t like to be deceived. People don’t like to be outsmarted.

They don’t like these things IN REAL LIFE.

This is why I say that my first goal is to get them to understand that it’s fake, and that we’re both on the same page about that. Only then do I put a ton of effort into making it feel like maybe it’s real.

Of course, there are some people who just don’t like magic. But I think those people are pretty rare.

Most people don’t mind being fooled by a trick. But people don’t want you to try and fool them about the nature of the experience. If you’re trying to pretend you can really read their mind or bend a spoon with your thoughts, that’s what turns people off.

People also don’t want to feel like the goal of this exercise is to make them feel stupid. And if you do a meaningless card trick or coin trick, it can be hard for them to see any other point to this than you showing off how you can fool them.

But if you can give your tricks an engaging premise and context, people realize there’s more to the experience than getting fooled. It’s an interactive bit of personal theater. There’s a story there. And for the story to play out, something mystical or impossible has to happen. That’s why you’ve created this moment. Not just to show how clever you are.

If you can couch being “fooled” in that sort of encounter, then I think Horace Goldin was undoubtedly right. It’s fun to be fooled in the service of a compelling story or experience.

The problem many magicians have is that they aren’t fooling.

Or if they are, then they’re just fooling. Which actually probably isn’t that much fun.

Another question remains… Did Horace Goldin actually know shit about fooling people? Here’s him performing the “classic” Bunny From A Dog’s Stomach That Disappears Into A Single Sheet of Newspaper, Suspiciously Delivered On A Tray.

A Dumb But Effective Card Vanish

Here’s a card vanish that is a little dumb, method-wise, but it’s super easy and works well with my style of magic and is more or less impromptu. I doubt there’s anything “new” here, but it’s also not a standard technique. Likely because it’s best for one-on-one situations and not the sort of thing that would be useful table-hopping or something like that.

I start with a deck of 51 cards. If I’m getting into this unplanned, then I just leave one card in the card-case when I take the deck out.

Your friend can choose any card and sign it without you knowing what it is and shuffle it back into the deck themselves. (Alternatively, if the card isn’t signed, you will need to know what it is via a force or a peek.)

Without taking the deck in my own hands, I tell them I’m going to make their card disappear.

I do something to imply I’m making the card disappear.

I tell them to deal the cards into my hand and count them as they go.

There are 51 cards.

“But maybe the deck was always missing a card. That’s possible. That’s certainly much more likely than that the card vanished, right? I want you to be absolutely sure so we’re going to go through just a few cards at a time and see if we see your card.”

I deal one card face-up on the table.

“Is that yours?”

No.

I deal two more.

“Either of those?”

No.

I deal three more.

“These”

No.

I continue dealing through the cards like this, just a few at a time, until we’re completely through the deck. Their selection is gone. They can completely examine the deck.

The card reappears wherever you’ve set it up to. In your wallet. In their purse. Back at their house in their baby’s diaper.

Method

Long-time readers will see why this sort of method appeals to me. There’s a real relaxed air to it. The card can be selected, signed, returned to the deck, and shuffled back into the pack, completely in their hands.

Dealing through the deck a few cards at a time is part of the method, but it also feels like a casual and fair way to be certain their card is gone.

The method is—as I said—nothing really interesting. I’m dealing through the cards, face-up on the table. The cards are angled at me. So I’m just keeping an eye out for their signed card (or the card I peeked). When I spot it as we’re going through the dealing process, I just take the few cards above it and leave it on the face of the pack.

As I lay down the few cards in my right hand for them to look at, I thumb off the card from the deck onto my lap. Their attention is on the cards being placed on the table, nowhere else.

Once we get to the end of dealing through the cards, I push the pile toward them and say, “Maybe it got stuck to another card or something. Double check.”

At this point, you can load the card into your wallet or an envelope (or an envelope in your wallet (or an envelope in your wallet inside of a low-carb tortilla)).

It’s a minor part of the deception, but I think it’s important to do the thing where you start with 51 cards. This way, the initial “vanish” happens while the cards are still in their hands. It’s not convincing at this point, but it’s slightly suggestive that something may have happened. And it justifies the idea of dealing through a few cards at a time to see if their card is really gone.

You may feel it’s stronger to not have the cards signed. Then you apparently couldn’t know what it is as you deal through the deck. In some cases I do it like that. It really depends on where the card is going to be revealed whether I want it signed or not.

Recently, I’ve been doing this with a wingman. Actually, I’ve been the wingman when doing this the last couple of times. My friend did this twice recently when he met up with people in public. Once the card is in his lap, I steal it away. (At one place we did it, he let it fall to the floor and kicked it over to me. At another, there was a bench along one wall of the café with multiple tables and chairs off that bench. We both sat on the bench side of the tables and he slid it down to me along the bench.)

Before the trick starts, he asks the person he’s with to name a place. “Not like Paris or something. Somewhere in the general area. Somewhere we could get to easily.”

After I get control of the card, I leave and plant the card somewhere at the place she named. Then I text my friend with a pic or other details so he knows exactly where to find the card when he gets there.

We have some other techniques we use to force the specific location the card will appear (at the general location they chose) once they arrive.

For example, a timing force where the spectator stops the magician “anywhere” as they point their finger and rotate in a circle. Things like that.

So it’s a complete card vanish, appearing anywhere the spectator names. This is unfathomable stuff to a layman who has no idea you’re working with someone else.