Better with Weber Contest
/It was sixteen years ago this month, back when i was writing my old blog, that Michael Weber wrote me an email that said:
“I enjoy your blog, despite my better judgement and sense of taste.”
This was back when people still needed to qualify their appreciation for my work. Hey, that’s fine. That’s still the attitude a lot of people have. “Oh…, well I guess I occasionally visit that and put up with his foolish for that once-in-a-blue-moon good idea he has. But as a serious student of magic, my favorite writer is definitely Henning Nelms.” Sure, okay. Meanwhile, your copy of Magic and Showmanship is under a mantle of dust; the cover practically snaps shut when you open it because it’s so tight from disuse. And if I look at your laptop there’s a ghostly image of the Jerx logo burned into the screen because of how much time you spend here. It’s okay, I won’t tell your secret. You’re a dummy just like me.
Anyway, I mention Weber because he, along with Tim Trono, have been supporters of my work and this site for as long as it has been around. And they’re both generous, good guys. (To me, at least. They may be absolute monsters in person.) With pretty much everything they release, they send me a copy to play around with, even though I’ve told them I’m happy to pay my own money for it.
Sometimes I end up with more than one copy of their effects. Either because they’ve sent me more than one or because of the convoluted way I procure magic. I have a couple friends who buy all my magic for me (with my own money) and then send it along to me wherever I might be staying. They handle the finances for The Jerx, so it’s just easier that way. I have a standing order with them to just buy anything Weber and Trono put out unless they hear otherwise from me. So sometimes I’ll buy something through one of my proxies, and then receive a copy from Weber/Trono as well. Sheesh! First-world anonymous magic blogger problems!
At any rate, I decided to take some of these brand new duplicate items and create a dope-ass giveaway for one lucky reader.
For the most part, Weber and Trono release their stuff on the down-low. That, obviously, appeals to my way of doing business too. So I won’t be giving away too many details on these products as they’re generally not things that are broadly advertised or sold in most online magic stores. You can search for more info and find some more details. Also if you’re not already on their mailing list, I would recommend getting on it. Email psience.mail@gmail.com and ask to be put on it. They didn’t ask me to say this. In fact, I’m not even sure they’ll be happy I did. But if that email address is still there, then they haven’t reprimanded me for putting it out there.
Here’s what the winner will receive…
Here is the brief description of what you see there:
Knowing: A mentalism demonstration where you know which of a number of objects your spectator is thinking of without asking any questions.
Lucky Day: Know someone’s lucky number without them ever saying it or writing it down. Keep it in your wallet, next to that aspirational condom you’ve had in there since 2011. (These are my descriptions. Not theirs.)
Crazy (and New Tops): Updated handling and gimmicks for the classic Crazy Cube effect. This includes the “New Tops” upgrade which makes the prop look almost identical to an old film canister. So now it appears more like a normal object.
The Truth: Michael’s take on the liar/truth teller and which hand plot.
The Seer: Michael’s peek business card case.
The Weber Wallet: Not a peek wallet. A shogun-style wallet with routines.
So there’s $600+ of magic and mentalism on the line here. And at least a couple of these items are not available any more.
“How do I win?” Hush a moment. I’ll tell you, but first let me tell you my rationale for why I’m conducting this contest the way I am. Everyone is bugging out these days with everything going on. It looks like for the next month, at least, we’re going to be on a partial lockdown in the US with similar situations happening in most other countries as well. The overwhelming majority of us are going to be fine, so our focus should be on how we come out on the other end better than we went in. The purpose of this contest is to get everyone thinking about that and to create a little gift for everyone who enters.
How To Enter and Win
Just follow the rules as written below. This contest is also a test of your ability to follow rules. If you mess that up, I’m tossing your entry.
Here’s how you enter. Send me an email at thejerx@gmail.com with a subject of: Contest.
The body of the email should contain these three items:
In one sentence, tell me a goal you’re committed to working towards this month. Something you’re going to learn or teach yourself or something you hope to achieve. This goal must be specific and measurable. “I’m going to learn to play guitar” is too generic. “I’m going be a better dad,” is meaningless. “I’m going to learn to play House of the Rising Sun on guitar,” or, “I’m going to spend an hour every evening with my kids,” are measurable goals. Your goal can be magic related or non-magic related. Could you just make up a goal you have no intention of following through on? Sure. But that wouldn’t be in the spirit of things.
Tell me about one of your favorite magic tricks that you perform regularly. Give me a basic description of the trick, where it can be learned, and then tell my why you like it. Be detailed, but don’t talk my ear off. And try to give me something I might not be familiar with. I want to learn about some stuff that might have slipped under my radar. Maybe it’s buried in a book/magazine/dvd. Or maybe it’s something that never got a wide release. Or maybe it’s your own unreleased trick. (If so you’ll have to give the method Hey, I’m looking to maybe learn some new stuff here. Not just hear some fan-fiction about a trick you can’t really do.) Don’t say ambitious card, or sponge balls, or something like that. I’ll just toss your entry. In fact I’ll physically print it out just so I can crumple it up and put it in the trashcan.
Tell me how you want to be referred to. This could be your full name, first name, initials, a secret code-name. I don’t give a shit. Just let me know.
Try not to include anything else of importance in your email as I will likely be filtering these out and won’t get to them for a few days.
Here’s the reason I need #3. I’m going to take everyone’s response to #2 and put it in an ebook that I will then send out to everyone who enters the contest. So while there will only be one winner, everyone who enters will get something out of this.
Yes, I know it requires a bit of work to enter the contest. But that’s a good thing. That means only the people who really want to win will go to the effort. So if you are interested in the prize, then your odds just went up, because I’ve eliminated everyone who is too lazy to submit an entry. I’d rather have 20 thought out entries than 1000 where people just had to submit an email address.
I will be accepting entries until this Sunday, the 5th, 11:59 p.m. EST. A winner will be picked next week at random. But, if your entry exceeds my expectations in some manner, then I may give you an additional chance to win. Essentially giving you an extra “ticket” in the virtual raffle.