Aquiver: Full of Eros

First off, that's some next-level punning in this post title. If you don't get it, go ask Max Maven or some other smart guy because it's solid as Sears. 

This is a quick presentational idea for French Postcards by Chris Philpott. I've found this to be a very enjoyable effect to perform. People seem to really connect with the idea. And it's pretty cheap, no reason not to buy it. Even if you never perform it you'll end up with 22 boobs to look at, you little pervert.

The effect is a version of Out of This World where your spectator separates "nudie" postcards from ordinary postcards of landmarks. You can tie the presentation into this actual study where people were able to determine which side of a computer screen an image would pop up on at a rate slightly better than chance, but only when that image was an erotic picture. 

The way I'm going to suggest performing it is a way I have only done once, and I regret doing it that way (for reasons I'll explain). But if you're in a serious relationship or married, then I think what follows would be a perfect way to present French Postcards, and might put a spark in your dull marriage. 

What it amounts to is this: You ask your partner for their help with something you're working on. Then you perform French Postcards for them. But you don't do the trick. You just actually have them try and separate them. At the end you reveal how good or bad they did. Again, you're actually doing the demonstration at this point, not a trick. So they'll likely be close to 50/50 at the end. After you've displayed their results, as you talk to them, reset the packets so you can do the effect again (properly this time) in a few minutes.

"I want to try that again in a moment," you say, and set the timer on your phone for 3 minutes. Now take your wife (or girlfriend or husband or boyfriend) by the hand and lead them over to the couch or the bed. Start kissing your way up their neck, nibbling their ear. Engage in an old-school make-out session like you haven't in years. 

Keep your clothes on, but let your hands explore freely. Bring some passion to the moment for the love of god. For many of you this will be a novel experience as your sex-life has evolved into two minutes of lifeless humping before bed a couple times a month. Slide one hand up her shirt and glide it across her body, down to her stomach, and let your fingers slip into the waistband of her jeans. "Is there any better feeling than someone sliding their hand down your pants?" my college friend Jake asked once. He had a point. Don't take things too far, tease her a bit.

Soon your alarm will start going off. "Let's just ignore that you say." And maybe you do. Or you can say, "Sorry, let's just break for two quick minutes. I want to try this again." 

Then you bring her back to the postcards and ask her to separate them into two piles again without looking. This time she separates them perfectly. The implication being that your activity together somehow amped up her sexual intuition. Which has a certain kind of logic to it.

Then you go back to bed and finish what you started. 

In the future I would only do this with someone I'm in a serious relationship with. Not because I won't hook-up with someone I'm not in a serious relationship with, I absolutely will. But because I think it has a tendency to imply a connection on a level that isn't really there. And there's something slightly too believable about it. If you're in a real relationship I see no issue with a trick that possibly suggests an even greater chemistry and sexual connection. But if your goal is to establish such a connection with a trick like this, I think that's creepy as fuck. Of course, this won't stop any of you. You know, those of you who perform effects where you can read their mind based on your "deep emotional connection" with them -- that's just as manipulative and shady. Save this trick (and ones like those) to use as manifestations of connections that really DO exist. Not as a way to create ones that don't.