RAP: The Gentle Sucker Trick

This is an idea in the Rehearsal As Presentation series.

It’s a concept I call “gentle sucker” tricks.

I think sucker tricks in casual/social situations come off as profoundly corny.

The worst part about magic is that people feel “set up” by it, and it can make them feel dumb. Sucker tricks are intended to emphasize these two things.

This was an idea I had years ago in an email conversation with Joe Mckay. The trick we were discussing was something like this…

You open a briefcase on your table, and you tell your friend that inside you have a deck of cards. You ask them to name any card. You look into your case and after a moment you remove a deck of cards. You spread the deck to show them all the cards are blue, except the one card they named is red.

With a little thought, your friend might rightly assume you have more than one deck of cards in the briefcase. In fact, you might have one for every possibility.

You admit they’re right and that you do have 52 decks in the case. You turn the briefcase around to show them it’s full of decks of cards.

But then you tip it over to show all the card cases are empty.

This is pretty classic Sucker Trick structure (using a single Brainwave deck). And while I’m not suggesting this sort of thing will piss people off or upset them, I do think it plays into the “this is me vs you, and I’m going to show I’m smarter than you” element of magic which is the least attractive part of it.

But let’s filter the same trick through the Rehearsal As Presentation concept.

You tell your friend that you’re part of a group of magicians who get together and try to fool each other. “Can I test something out on you? I want to see how fooling it is.” Just this slight twist is already a more compelling premise than, “Let me try and fool you.”

But now, let’s continue forward. You do the trick. You bring out the blue deck with one red card that happens to be the card they named.

“Do you think that will fool them? Or do you have some idea of how it works?”

“Well, can I look in the briefcase?”

“Uhm…. so you think they’ll want to look in the briefcase?”

“Yeah, I would. They probably will too.”

“Oh boy…. that’s not good,” you say, and slowly turn the case around to show it’s loaded with decks. “52 decks. Busted.”

Your friend will likely find this amusing.

“But actualy,” you say, conspiratorially. “That’s just what I want them to think.” Then you tip over the briefcase to show all those cases are empty.

It still has the sucker element to it, but now they’re on your side. They’re still fooled by the trick, and still taken in by the twist. But now they’re playing a part in helping you test how “fooling” this trick is. It’s a subtle change, but they no longer feel like “the mark.” In fact, when I’ve used this structure on other “sucker” type tricks, I find that the more “duped” they feel, the more they like it.

It’s like getting a peek behind a prank that’s about to occur. Sucker tricks have a “prankish” feel to them. But instead of them feeling like they were mainpulated, they’re getting an insider look at how you are planning to manipulate someone else.

Dells

I have a new concept for us to think about. I write about it in the upcoming book. But the books are intended to be specific examples of stuff I write about here on the site. So just reading the site alone will give you the groundwork for anything I talk about in the books. I don’t want anyone to feel like because they can’t support at the $25/month level that they’re going to be left out of something.

Today I’m going to introduce you to the concept of Dells, which goes along with other concepts I’ve introduced on this site: Imps, Sponts, Buy-Ins, Reps, etc.

Dells

In nature, a dell is a small, secluded hollow, it can be a grassy valley or a little stream surrounded by trees or something like that.

Dells are often romanticized in stories and folklore. Places where fairies might gather, or lovers will meet for a secret midnight tryst.

A dell creates its own little world—a cool, sheltered space with its own atmosphere that feels separate from the surrounding landscape. Unique plants and animals can thrive there because it’s cut off from the usual wind and sunlight. 

In magic, a ‘Dell’ does something similar. It, too, can create its own “little world” for a trick, giving it meaning and context that’s separate from both the real world, and the typical magic presentation.

“Dell” is the name for the Delivery Method for predictions and revelations. This isn’t some mystical or hard-to-define concept. It’s literally the actual, concrete way the prediction is delivered to the person—that’s what a Dell is.

Prediction have an inherent “sameness” to them. “I wrote down the precise word/number/playing card/emotion/time of day you would think of.”

In one show, over a single night, it might not matter that this all feels the same. But if you’re always doing the same sort of thing for people over months and years of knowing them, it’s likely to grow stale over a short period of time

One way to breathe life into a prediction or revelation trick is to change the Dell.

One of the earliest examples of a Dell on this site is the Creepy Child revelation for Spectator Cuts the Aces, where the cards the spectator cuts to are predicted in a child’s drawing on your refrigerator.

The trick itself could end with you pulling out a piece of paper where you predicted the cards they would cut to, and it would be the same trick technically.

But you see how this Dell—the manner in which the prediction is delivered—is enough to build a story around and create its own little fictional world of a precocious or creepy child who can predict what’s going to happen.

Let’s look at another example. The Hoy Book Test. They’re thinking of a word, and you say, “Are you thinking of lemon?”

What if you change the Dell, and instead you go into a trance-like state and this strange voice comes from deep in your throat. “𝔄𝔯𝔢 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫k𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔬𝔣 𝔩𝔢𝔪𝔬𝔫?”

This is a completely different experience for your audience.

You might be saying, “I don’t get it. Do you just like coming up with new verbiage or something? Your “Dell” thing is just another way of talking about a trick’s premise. The premise is of a creepy child who predicts the cards they’ll cut to. The premise is of a spirit that takes over your body to know what word they’re thinking of. This isn’t anything new.”

You have it backwards. The Dell is solely the delivery method for the prediction or the revelation.

The point I’m making is that once you come up with a new Dell, a premise will naturally grow out of it.

What if you didn’t write down your prediction but…

… it was on an old, unlabeled V/H/S tape you found. Delivered by some guy speaking in a dull monotone, staring into the camera.

… it was carved into a tree behind the school you went to as a child.

… you farted into your phone’s voice memo feature, and then you used a “special app” to slow down your fart by 20,000%, and it’s this low voice saying, You will pick the 9 of Diamonds. “That’s weird, right?” you say, as if you need confirmation.

As I write those ideas, I don’t have premises to go along with them, but it wouldn’t take much thought to expand those different Dells in to greater premises, stories, and worlds.

Mailbag #130

Here’s a new one for you. Tonight I performed Petty’s Big Blind effect for the third time. It went down a treat and I was pretty happy with the performance and the reaction. My friend’s wife asked if she could take a picture of the poker chips after the final revelation. [The final revelation being that the card the spectator thinks of is embossed on the back of the poker chips.]

15 minutes later she shows me the video of Craig Petty on youtube exposing the trick. She had done some sort of AI object recognition search, learned the name of the trick and then found the exposure video from there. Do you see any way around this? —VT

Well, I have bad news for you. We are just at the infancy of this sort of thing. The situation you ran into is still relatively rare. But it’s going to skyrocket in the next couple of years, I think. In every facet of life where people are telling themselves, “I don’t understand this” or “I don’t know what this is,” they’re going to be taking pictures of the things involved and searching for more information online. This is not something they will just be doing for magic tricks, they’ll be doing it for everything, including magic tricks.

Ways around this? Yes and no.

1. If you don’t let them take a picture, then they’re not going to have something to run a search on. But if you say, “Don’t take a picture of these poker chips!” that’s going to come as sociopathic.

2. For this particular trick, if you vanished the chips at the end, you would be in a situation where there wasn’t anything to take a picture of. But vanishing the chips might not make sense with your presentation.

3. More generally, choose tricks from books, magazines and multi-trick downloads. Avoid individual releases and tricks with specific-looking props that are searchable based on their image.

   I know someone else who did a recent poker chip trick and someone they performed for just typed “poker chip” + magic in youtube, then sorted by date and found out the exact trick and how it was done. This is just the nature of commercially released individual effects. They’re going to be easier to discover because, in some ways, the creators want them to be discovered. Not by the audience, necessarily, but by other magicians who are interested in the trick.

4. Search for tricks that engage people on a level that goes beyond fooling them. While Big Blind is a strong trick, “I knew what card you would name,” or, “I influenced you to name that card,” are not very charming premises. A strong trick with a magician-centric premise is the most likely type of trick to be searched by a layperson. So if you want to do such a trick, find one without a digital footprint.

5. Perform for older people who are less likely to take a picture in the first place, and then less likely to do a visual search of that picture. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Wanted to thank you for the amazing season of content. Loved the cigarette magic arc (to name one) and the newsletters content was s-tier, as always.

More specifically, wanted to thank you for your post on "Carefree Magic". It was really the breakthrough of the year, really got to the essence of your performance style. But it also had a pivotal effect on me: I'm pretty sure I've 5x-ed my performance frequency since I've started applying it (+rotational houses) to my own repertoire. It removes so much friction and makes it much easier to contextualize the experience we're going after. Super powerful. So thanks :)—IM

Thanks. I don’t normally post complimentary emails on the site (because who really cares besides me). But I do want to highlight the Carefree philosophy as being the most impactful on me (and a number of others, from what I’ve heard).

Someday I may roll everything together and make a small book out of it where I think it will have a bigger impact. As of now, it’s a bit spread out throughout the posts and I think it takes a little bit of effort to understand the overall philosophy. Especially because it impacts the tricks I do, how I do them, what I carry with me, the premises and environments I look to perform in and so much more. I think a lot of people saw the word Carefree and easily picked up on one element of what I was saying, but perhaps not all of it. I’ll try to come up with a way to present all of it together at some point because it has made the most profound difference for me in my magic life.

Dustings #119

Ooh boy. This past week has been a little weird. Coming off a month of long days working on the next book, I feel like my internal metronome is completely screwed up. When you’re working 12-14 hours a day on something, and then you go back to a more standard “work day” it feels like you’re on a break. Even when you’re not at all on a break. Like, I woke up Monday and felt like I should be wearing this shirt:

But in reality, I had a full normal week of work ahead of me. It was weird.

At any rate, thanks for your patience during my month off.

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My favorite artist, Mort Künstler, passed away this week at a hearty 97 years old. That link goes to an old post where I put up some of my favorite of his works.

Coincidentally, Mort’s art is the inspiration for the next book cover which is going to be dope.

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The new edition of Magic: The Complete Course by Joshua Jay is out now. If you know of a beginner in magic (or just like beginner magic books yourself) this is a good, modern introduction to the subject.

And it will look less embarrassing on your shelf than the original cover.

Poor Josh. It’s got to be rough when the publishing company is like, “Hey, you know what’s no longer a selling point for this book? Your fucking face.”

I’m bummed too because I actually took that photo for the original cover. It was a weird day. Josh was in a terrible mood. We shot for hours, but nothing really popped. Finally, I said, “Josh, I want you to imagine this. Andi Gladwin is in front of you and just dropped his deck all over the floor. He’s bending over to pick it up and his fat ass is right in your face.” Immediately, the sparkle was in Josh’s eyes and his hands went into that “gimme, gimme” position. The rest, as they say, is history.

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Speaking of JJ. I have no idea why I bought the URL

joshuajaysdicksmells.lol

last year and had it redirect to Vanishing Inc.

But regardless, I’ve been informed this will only work for a couple of more days. I won’t be paying $31.16 to keep this going. So update your bookmarks!

What Else?

I recently taught a friend of mine my version of Sum Total by Larry Becker (this isn’t something that’s released yet). If you don’t know that trick, it’s one where your friend writes down a string of numbers, and that string of numbers just happens to be the total of four 4-digit numbers you showed them earlier. (At least, in the version I do it’s four 4-digit numbers, I’m not sure if that’s what it is in the original.)

In my version, the general premise is that you do something to the other person that briefly gives them incredible mathematical abilities.

After he tried the trick out on another friend of ours, she said something that sort of tripped him up.

She said, “Wait… seriously? Did I just do that?”

I get this kind of question a lot. I think people know I’m not going to just lie to them, so they think maybe by asking the question straight-out that I will relieve them the burden of the mystery of what just happened.

In this situation, what I usually see magicians do is one of two things.

1. They immediately cave. “Did that really just happen?” “Ah, no. It’s just a trick.”

2. They make a joke of it. “Did that really ust happen?” “It sure did! Now let’s go to Vegas and have you count some cards!”

My recommendation when someones starts questioning the reality of the experience is just to ask questions in return.

“Did that really just happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did I really just add those numbers together…like, subconsciously?”

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know. But is it some kind of trick or something?”

“How would that work?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, how would a trick like that work? How could you make someone write down the exact number that was the sum of four other numbers by a trick?”

At this point, they’re either going to be stuck for an answer, or they’re going to give you some kind of option that makes a little bit of sense.

If they point out some way in which it could be a trick, and their speculation makes sense, then that just gives you one more thing to account for the next time you perform that trick. So their conjecture should help you make the trick even stronger.

That’s my basic approach to things. When they ask if something really happened, my first reaction is to say, “What else could it be?” And if they suggest trickery I turn it around on them and ask them how it would work. Just ask questions.

Rough Draft: Sugarclipped

Last month, while working on the next book, I spent a lot of time in coffee shops procrastinating. This idea came out of that.

It’s essentially a sugar packet switch that’s based on Jay Sankey’s Paperclipped. But without a paperclip.

You have a sugar packet with the top torn off in left-hand finger palm.

You have your friend choose a sugar packet from the table (or wherever) and you take it from them in your right hand.

You place it on top of the prepped packet in your left hand and start to tear off the top with your right fingers.

When it’s 80% torn off, pause and say something. Return to the packet to finish tearing off the top. But in the action of plucking off the top portion, you actually pull away the entire packet and push up the pre-torn packet from your left fingertips.

What could you use this for?

Hmmm…

You could have a folded card in the prepped packet, so it’s like their chosen card magically appears in the packet they gave you.

You could have a little index of prepped packets with colored sugar, and then have the sugar in their chosen packet change into their freely chosen color.

You could make someone’s vanished ring appear in a sugar packet.

You could have them give you two sugar packets of different colors. You make one disappear. Then tear open the other one to reveal the vanished one.

You could fill the prepped one with arsenic and then offer to sweeten your wife’s coffee and poison her.

Rehearsal as Presentation

One of the ways to get into a performance with the least amount of friction is to say:

“I have [some event where I’m expected to perform a magic trick] coming up. Can I try it out on you?”

This is just far more comfortable for most people. Especially for people you don’t know very well or people who haven’t seen you perform before.

Put yourself in their position. What if some guy said to you, “I’m going to show you some ventriloquism.” That might come off as a little weird. You might question how you’re supposed to respond to it. But if he said, “So, I signed up to provide entertainment at my nephew’s school carnival. I had to come up with a ventriloquism act. Do you mind if I run it by you? Just to rehearse it in front of someone?” Now, that situation is still a little unusual, but I think it’s far more palatable to most people.

In general, people are much more comfortable in a position where they’re asked for their feedback as opposed to one where they’re asked for recognition or praise (which is what, “Let me perform for you,” often comes across as).

The thing is, I’m not introducing the trick this way for my benefit. I don’t mind if someone thinks I’m corny because I want to show them a trick.

I’m introducing the trick this way because I want to put them in the most relaxed mindset they can be in to watch a performance. And if they don’t know me that well, then this indirect approach can help reframe the whole thing as a collaborative exercise rather than a plea for attention.

Here are some other examples.

• “My work does a talent show each year as part of a team-building exercise. I signed up to do a magic trick. Do you mind if I run it by you?”

• “My neighbor’s kid is having a birthday party. His parents know I used to do magic as a kid and asked if I’d perform something. I haven’t done it in a while, do you mind if I rehearse with you?”

• “My cousin’s getting married, and they asked me to do some close-up magic during cocktail hour. Can I get your thoughts on this one?”

• “This bartender at a place near me gives me a free drink if I can fool him with a little magic trick. I’ve burned through the few tricks I know, but I just learned a new one. Can I test it out on you first?”

• “I’m getting together with some friends from elementary school. Back then we used to have a magic club where we tried to learn tricks to fool each other. Now we’re in our 60s, and we’re getting together for one last meeting of the club. Can I try my new trick out on you?”

In general, I don’t use these sorts of intros on people I know well. Those people are already comfortable seeing magic from me. And I’d have to come up with a story that was believable with my everyday life. But when I’m traveling or in a situation where I’m spending time with someone I won’t be crossing paths with again, I can pretty much create any story I want. And yes, technically this is “lying.” Get over yourself. The world isn’t going to spin off its axis because you told someone you volunteered to perform a trick at your kid’s summer camp.

One intro I will use with people I know is that I’ve been asked to show a trick in some situation for kids. This is one of my favorite uses of Rehearsal as Presentation. It brings people’s guards way down. Then I can present a trick with a simple, child-centric premise that’s built on top of a really fooling method. Like predicting how they’ll choose to color an image. Or the name they’ll come up with for my stuffed dog. And because they don’t feel like you’ve challenged them to see if you can fool them—because you’re on the same “team”—they’re almost happy to be fooled. The feelings that are implied in the reactions I get to this type of presentation is: “Oh my god. I know that’s something you’re going to show kids. But honestly, that fooled even me!” Again, not in those exact words. But that’s the sentiment of their reaction.

I’ll be sharing a couple more specific uses of this technique, likely later this month.