UPDATED: Somebody Figure This Shit Out For Me

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I've been having some ideas for effects where the climax doesn't happen at the end. Or, at least where the most surprising moment of the effect isn't the last part of it. I don't know if this makes any sense. But it doesn't need to for the purposes of this post.

So I had this idea. I would call up a friend and ask if I could show them something and let them know it would require some very specific items so it might be a little annoying but I think the trick is pretty good. Then when I get to their house I sit on their couch and pull out my phone. I turn on my phone to look at the list of stuff I'm going to need for the effect. I read off the list.

"Okay, I need a pair of sunglasses, a quarter, a magazine, a remote control, a spoon, a pair of scissors, a pen, and a DVD case."

My friend says, "Wait... what do you need?"

I turn my phone to my friend to show them the instructions for the trick where it says:

Required Items:

  • a pair of sunglasses
  • a quarter
  • a magazine
  • a remote control
  • a spoon
  • a pair of scissors
  • a pen
  • a dvd case

She looks from the phone to me and says, "Are you kidding me?"

"What do you mean?" I ask.

She points to her coffee table.

I thought this would be a cool, surprising way to get into an effect. As if I just so happened to need whatever items she had immediately on hand. What effect would I go into? Probably some kind of equivoque routine. I have a pretty well honed version I do and I could just say that they recommend these particular items because, in concert, one of them is particularly psychologically attractive and the others are psychologically repellant.

And I thought it would be easy to do as well. Just have a set of instructions on my phone with nothing under the "Required Items" heading. Then, when I go to read out the list of items, I just hit the voice transcription button on my iphone and list off whatever I see on the table in front of me. 

But, as some of you probably know, when you do voice transcription there is a noise when you start and stop it (even if you have your phone on silent and the volume all the way off). And you can't hit enter to create a list because the keyboard vanishes. Does anyone know a way around either of these issues? Is there some kind of setting I can adjust to remove the noise? Or a different app altogether? Probably not. 

Oh well. I'm going to continue to work on this type of idea and so should some of you. I like the idea of having a very particular set of needs for a trick, and then -- by luck or fate -- those needs are exactly what you have before you.

UPDATE 12:00 PM, July 23rd - As I slept, Jerx: Europe got to work on this problem and I woke up to a few emails that had a solution -- at least in part -- to this. And that's simply to do the effect with my headphones plugged in. Which now seems obvious, of course. My mind had been thinking in the direction of some kind of setting to turn off the noise, but this will work just as well, especially given the fact I would have my headphones plugged in in the first place. So thanks to Marc K., Rob S., and Rob D. for writing in with that suggestion.