Dustings of Woofle #19
/If you are a 2019 Jerx Supporter on the installment plan, you will soon be getting (or have already gotten) an email from paypal saying “Your PayPal Profile is no longer active.”
The following PayPal recurring payment profile is no longer active. We won’t bill the buyer again.If you need any support regarding this recurring payment profile, please contact us by clicking Help and Contact at the bottom of the PayPal homepage.
This is paypal’s odd way of saying, “Hey, congratulations! Your installments are all paid. That plan you had set up has come to its conclusion, with no issues at all. As expected, we’re not going to make any more payments because why would we do that when you’ve paid the agreed upon amount? Everything went smoothly, isn’t that great?” For some reason they decided to phrase that message in a way that a number of you found confusing or alarming.
If you get that message it just means—other than the shipping, which you’ll pay when the items are ready—you’re paid up.
The book and the other bonuses for 2019 supporters are on schedule for the end of January.
I’ve never been drawn to the Ball and Vase effect that much. It’s just never a trick that seemed that interesting. But there’s just something about this set from Magic Makers that is calling to me.
I reverse image searched it (to see if Magic Makers was ripping someone off as they’ve been accused of in the past) and I learned that there are tons of ball and vase sets available on line. Now I just can’t decide which one to get. The sturdy looking black one, the bejeweled purple one, the stainless steel one, or the intriguing looking 7-piece set, which I guess you could do a full routine with.
Related to some of the recent posts on failure, here is a way to handle a legitimate failure. Let’s say a double splits and they realize you have two cards. Your initial inclination may be to laugh it off and move onto something else, so as not to draw too much attention to the screw up. “Okay, you got me. Here, check this out.”
Instead of that, an approach you might consider is to over expose the method, and explain exactly what you were doing, as if it’s so meaningless/useless that you’re willing to burn it completely. Treat it like a bad new idea you were just trying out this once. That way, instead of thinking they’ve stumbled on a fundamental technique in card magic, they might dismiss it somewhat as not being that important. “You know, honestly I figured you’d notice that it was two cards. I don’t know what that guy was smoking. There’s this guy on the magic message boards selling this new technique he came up with. It’s called “twin carding.” It’s holding two cards as if they’re one card. Like this, I guess? But who would possibly be fooled by that? This guy is a great salesman, he had me convinced I could make it work. But there’s no way. You can’t hold two cards like that for long. Cards are too slippery!”
Progress!
In the email for VanishingInc’s magic convention for children, they only mention the “hands on” nature of the event twice.
If this were the 80s or 90s, I can assure you that “hands on” would be stressed with much more vigor. in fact, let me go see if I can go find an old ad for a children’s magic convention from that time.
Ah… here’s one.
CUM ‘89
Now is the time to buy your tickets for the most hands-on magic convention for children ever! Children’s United Magic ‘89. In this hands-on convention we will put our hands directly on your child under the pretense of teaching them magic. Instead of stuffy old magic books, your child will receive hands-on teaching from stuffy old men who will teach your child magic via their loving caress.
Book soon! Seating is limited. It’s so limited in fact that your child will sit in an older gentleman’s lap for the duration of the convention, where he will be tickled and squeezed and encouraged to wriggle about.
Due to issues that arose after last year’s convention, there will also be a special workshop given on the importance of keeping secrets.