Welcome Back

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Hey, it's me, magic's #1 fuccboi, Andy, returning for year 2(.5) of The Jerx. 

Today I'm going to ease back in to regular posting with a preview of what's in store for this year.

How are your New Year's resolutions going? One of mine was to be much more focused when writing this site. I wanted to be less distracted so posts wouldn't take me so long to put together. Usually when I write I'll write a sentence, take a break, think about what the next sentence will be, and in that break I'll click some other tabs and start doing something else entirely. So this year was going to be the year I knocked that shit off and really sat down and wrote with a single-mindedness. 

So I sat down. Thought: I guess I'll say 'Welcome back.' Then thought: Maybe I can find an amusing Welcome Back Kotter gif. Then I watched Welcome Back Kotter clips on youtube for 35 minutes—a show I consider unfunny and depressing.

So that's where I'm at.

This site exists because of the people who pledged their support for the Jerx 2017. If you signed up for the mailing list in the past couple of months you should have received an email this weekend with a link to subscribe for the supporter rewards to come. If you didn't sign up and you're interested, don't worry, the link will be available for everyone tomorrow.

This Christmas, reader Joseph Ruiz was inspired by some of the ideas in this blog to perform a Distracted Artist/non-presentation bottle production. Instead of saying, "Gather 'round everyone. As you know, I'm a mindfreak and I have something wonderful to show you," he just planted the folded, flattened bag he would remove the bottle from under the Christmas tree as part of a White Elephant gift exchange. When it was his turn to "randomly" pick a gift, he chose the little packet, unfolded it, pulled out a little card and then the bottle of booze.

Here is the schedule for the Jerx 2017:

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday there will be new posts here. 

Tuesday and Thursday there will be short posts previewing what will be in the coming month's Jerx magazine or highlighting some other commercial enterprise related to this site. Essentially these will be sponsored posts, except I'm the sponsor. (Although I'm open if other people want to purchase something ad-like to run on one of those days.)

So if you just want the legit posts, come on MWF. New posts will go up around 3AM New York time.

There will be the occasional Saturday non-magic posts, and I'll be taking 4 weeks off over the course of the year.

The first week of every month will be when the Jerx digital magazine will come out and that will go to all subscribers. It's full name is the Jerx Amateur Magic Monthly. I'm calling it that for two reasons. The first is because that is the perspective I'm writing from and any insights I have will be directed primarily to people performing in non-professional situations. The second reason is so that when it shows up in your email you can say, "Aw, shit! That's my JAMM!"

What will the difference be between the blog material and the magazine material?

In the magazine:

  • New product reviews and presentational ideas
  • Some of the (relatively) more workable effects I've come up with (similar to the stuff that made the book)
  • Theory and tips of a more actionable and practical nature

On this site:

  • Comedy and commentary on things happening in the world of magic
  • Discussion of broader theoretical concepts
  • Tricks that are less "usable" but still may be interesting to read about—similar to the "Field Reports" I used to do on this site

For example, in the coming weeks I'll be posting a trick where you eat a throw-pillow. This is something I've done once in my life and probably won't do again and it doesn't have any real application in any other trick. You won't be like, "Say... I think that technique he uses to eat a throw-pillow is really going to translate well into my Shadow Coins routine."

I spent a lot of time (and far too much money) in 2016 traveling around, meeting people and testing out new ideas for this site and the JAMM. I'm looking forward to sharing some of the ideas with you over the course of 2017. 

On Wednesday I'll be giving away some 2016 awards. Who had the dumbest post on the Magic Cafe? What was the least essential deck of custom playing cards released? Find out the answers to these and more on Wednesday.

On Friday I want to discuss a new way of considering magic and performance that I've been thinking about a lot over the past few months. It's an extension of the audience-centric concept and attempts to answer the question of why specifically I think magic is a valuable tool to engage people with, especially if you're not drawn to the traditional "Magician" role (as I am not). It's the type of thinking that will really connect with a few of you and make the rest of you say, "This guy's really got his head up his own ass." 

It's good to be back. And up your nose with a rubber hose. Up all of our noses with rubber hoses.