Dustings of Woofle #20
/If you’re feeling the holiday blues, I suggest you check in with Ellusionist’s kickstarter page for How to Be a Mentalist. Every time I go, I find something new to put a smile on my face.
I particularly like this part…
“The breakdown of a reaction…
Think about what it takes to put this kind of expression on someone’s face. What does it TAKE? See a pink elephant? A car coming at you head-on? Win the lottery?
Reactions like this will be the norm for you…. after you master a couple of the items in the kit.”
Who writes this gibberish? How out of touch with human emotions do you have to be when your best examples of situations when people cry are seeing a pink elephant or a car coming at them head on? Who starts sobbing when a car is coming their way? How evolutionarily ill-equipped would we be if—when facing imminent danger—we stood there and worked up a good cry? “Oh, woe is me! A car is coming my way! And here I sit… a blubbering old fool. Yes, just a mere quarter mile or so and it will all be over. Well you had a good run, old friend. [Sobs] I can’t believe this is the end! Any moment now. Oh… hold on… red light…. Ok, here he comes again. Awww…. why me god? Why? I’m so sad! So, incredibly sad about this car that’s going to hit me! Whyyyyyyy!!!!” [Splat.]
The funniest thing about this is that the set is marketed towards people who can’t even carry on a fucking conversation with other people. Now they’re suggesting these social maladroits should go and try and make people cry? “Hey, Tommy, remember when the pretty girl approached you and you suffered nerve-induced sphincter spasms causing a little piece of turd to shoot out of your butthole? Okay… well… uhm…forget all of that. Go over there and tell her to write down the name of a friend she hasn’t seen in a long time. And really turn the screws on her to get the waterworks going.”
That’s going to work out well.
One of the things I found myself thankful for yesterday was magic as a hobby. You can like playing basketball, or playing chess, or knitting, or home-brewing, or yoga, or model train collecting—but I can’t think of any other hobby where there is the promise of something new and potentially revolutionary multiple times a week. Every lecture you download, magic book/magazine you open, or trick you buy has the potential to bring something totally new into your experience of the hobby. If you like whittling, for example, I bet you seldom get that same anticipation or thrill. You’re probably not like, “Oh, the new whittling magazine came in the mail today! I can’t wait to see what unimaginable wonders it might describe!”
It’s probably more like, “Oh great, here are more articles about carving stuff out of wood.”
On the other hand, the promise of something new always around the corner is, I think, also something that keeps people from performing. They tell themselves that this next trick is going to really be the one that gets them out there showing people stuff. And they just keep telling themselves that.
If you’re fine not performing, then it’s nothing to worry about. But if you want to be showing people more stuff, it’s good to be aware of this trap. I know I’ve been caught in that cycle in the past of just constantly looking towards the next thing—passing up really good tricks in search of some elusive “perfect” trick to show people.
Here’s a 13 minute audio story from This American Life that was sent to me by T.C. earlier this year.
I’m not 100% sure what to make of it, but I think it shows that people’s appetite for the fantastic is far greater than we may think.
As someone who watches almost no magic on tv or online, I was surprised how much I liked this 20 minute “magic mixtape” from Justin Flom. I enjoyed it more than any magic I’ve seen on tv or online in a long time. I’m a little burnt out on watching people do proper “acts” on stage. And even the more casual stuff I see online just feels too staged for me to really take an interest in.. But this was neither of those things. It’s a well-edited collection of quick vignettes where, in the end, you really feel like you get some sense of who he is as a person and the lifestyle of someone with a life-long interest in magic.
And look, let’s be honest, he knows where his bread is buttered. He’s got that adorable little muppet of a daughter who appears throughout the video. Justin is no dummy. He’s getting all this cute stuff on tape now. It’s not going to be any good when she’s a gawky, brace-faced, 12-year-old who is completely embarrassed by his bullshit. In fact, I believe he and his wife are expecting another child. I’m guessing the plan is—when the new kid reaches prime cuteness in a couple years—to send this current one off to an orphanage. And likely they’ll just repeat that cycle every few years. Nothing wrong with that, that’s just savvy marketing. Look, don’t be so naive, it’s 2019. You don’t get on Pickler & Ben without shipping off a few kids to an orphanage when they get a little long in the tooth.