The Jerx Presents: Tempestarii by Leigh Herbert

People send me tricks all the time but I rarely post them here. Even if they’re good tricks, I often don’t post them. And that’s because this site isn’t meant to be a repository of good tricks. There are other places to go for that. I want this site to be a place where you go to look for a certain style of magic (the social/casual/amateur style). So when I post other people’s stuff, it really has to feel like it’s on that wavelength.

Leigh is an amateur performer out of New York City. A couple weeks ago he sent me two great ideas. The one you’re about to read, which came pretty much fully formed, and then another idea that I’m going to be working on with him once everyone is off house arrest.

This trick, Tempestarii, is pretty much a perfect little moment of strangeness, as far as I’m concerned. Thanks to Leigh for sharing it with us.

Imagine

I’m going to start you off with the most basic presentation for use in impromptu-ish situations. You’ll see as we go along that you could create a very specific routine for different scenarios.

Here’s how I imagine presenting this (I haven’t had the chance to do so yet because we’re on lockdown).

It will be somewhere where I’m out with my laptop. For me that’s usually going to be a coffee shop or the library. But you could also do this trick at school, or on your home or work computer or whatever.

Let’s say I’m at a coffee shop, sitting at the counter, chatting up the barista when things are slow.

I grab a napkin, write down some numbers on it and some arcs along a simple x/y access. I step outside and look in the sky. I don’t draw attention to this. It doesn’t matter if the other person notices.

I come back in and ask the barista, “Can I get your help with something? Actually, I don’t even really need your help per se. I just want you to tell me I’m not crazy.”

I’ll open my computer and go to Google. “Let’s see… let’s do Los Angeles,” I’ll say, and go to type something. “Actually no. You pick. Uhm… do you have a friend who lives in a different city from here? Someone you like? We’re going to do a nice gesture for them” Let’s say she says she has a friend in Omaha, Nebraska.

I turn my computer to her and ask her to google: Omaha latitude longitude and read out the numbers to me.

As she does I write them on the napkin.

I’ll then draw another x/y axis and some strange curves. “I think that’s right,” I’ll say.

“Google Omaha weather,” I’ll say.

She searches it and the forecast for the next week shows at the top of the results.

I’ll turn the computer so we can both see the screen. “What day has the worst weather? Monday looks pretty bad. Oh wait, Tuesday is the worst.”

The Tuesday weather is stormy and chilly.

“This is going to be weird, okay?”

I don’t touch the computer at all. I center myself, focus, rub my hands together, or something. Then I sort of push some energy into the screen. And then it happens… the weather for that day starts changing. The clouds clear and the temperature rises. It becomes the nicest day of the week.

“That just happened, right?” I’ll ask.

It’s really google, not some weird google83935.fun/magic page. It’s the real forecast for the city they freely name. She can refresh the page or check on her phone. The weather has really changed.

“Do me a favor, don’t tell anyone about this,” I’ll say.

There it is. It’s an impromptu trick, assuming you have your computer with you.

And that’s just one way of doing it. If someone is traveling you could change the weather so they have a nicer day when they arrive. Or if they have an outdoor event coming up you could change the weather for that day. Or change the weather for someone’s upcoming birthday. “Consider that my gift,” you say, and save yourself $40.

I think the way I will be most likely to get into it is—when anybody mentions that it’s a nice day—I’ll say. “It is, isn’t it.” With a weird smile on my face. “It wasn’t supposed to be. A couple of days ago they were calling for rain.” Then I’ll just let that sit there. And later I’ll be like, “Okay, I can’t keep this a secret. I have to show you this thing I learned.”

The ritual to change the weather could also be more elaborate. You could slit a rabbit’s throat and bathe in its blood or something like that. Or have some weird weather iconography carved into rocks that you manipulate and pray to or whatever. I just gave a simple impromptu ritual that you could let the spectator read into, or you could define it in some way.

Do this trick one day and Aelous from TOY another day and then add your name to the Weather God wikipedia page.

Zeus, Greek - Thunder/lightning and sky god and king of the gods
Tamar (Goddess) - Georgian virgin goddess who controlled the weather.
Indra, Hindu - Thunder/lightning god.
Chip Dupree - Weather God, cashier at Foot Locker (and, like Tamar, also a virgin)

Method

I will let Leigh take it from here. He’s written a really clear document describing the effect and method. It’s super simple. Even if you’ve never done something like it before, don’t worry. He’ll walk you through it and make the process very easy.

Here are the instructions.

In my write-up above, I ask for them to google the lat/longitude just to lay the foundation that this is a real google search. At that point they’re not questioning anything anyways, but I like the idea of having them do a real search or two before getting to the weather page.

And, in my description, I would do the necessary dirty work on the keyboard as I turn the laptop so we can both see it.

At the end of that document, Leigh also provides a way for you to contact him if you have questions, suggestions, or just to thank him. If you think this is anywhere near as cool as I do, you should definitely go thank him.

Alternate Presentational Idea

For whatever reason you find yourself looking at the weather results for your city or another city with a friend of yours. The day you two are particularly interested in looks like it’s going to be shitty weather. “Damn,” you say.

You look around a little, cautiously. “Hmmm… I kind of hate to do this, but I don’t want bad weather for the party. Here, come on.”

As you walk outside you talk about the Butterfly Effect, how a butterfly flapping its wings in one location can eventually lead to a hurricane on the other side of the globe. “This is going to sound unbelievable, I know. But the weird thing is… I can do something similar. Not cause a hurricane. Not yet, at least. But shift around some weather patterns a little to help us out. Where’s north?” You figure out where north is and walk a few steps in that direction then turn to the right just a few degrees. Then you start huffing and puffing like a maniac, or flapping your arms as if they’re wings (depending on how big a jackass you want to look like). After a few moments you stop and compose yourself. “Let’s see if that worked, you say.”

You walk back inside and check the weather forecast. It’s still the same. “Well,” you say, ‘it’s not immediate. The domino effect of conditions has to go up into the troposphere and re-jigger everything. Not to get lost in the science of it all. But it usually takes a minute or so. Oh look, there it goes.”

You draw their attention to the computer and you see in real time how your actions have affected the future as the clouds fade into bright sunshine.