While We Were Out
/So what’s happened the past 10 days?
Well, the new season of Fool Us started airing. Here’s the description of the first episode from TVGuide.com.
I didn’t see the episode, but I really hope these plucky, young “aspiring magicians” did well. But even if not, don’t give up! I have faith in you. Never stop aspiring to be a magician. I know it’s hard. Paul Gertner, for example, has been trying to be a magician for, like, 40 years. Everyone in his life is telling him to give it up and come back and work for the family cabinet-making business. But I think he should follow his dreams. Maybe one day he’ll get a break and finally be a real magician.
A new trick was released where a deck of cards turns into a stack of money.
There was a concern by some, after looking at the demo, that people might notice the 90 degree corners on the cards or the space between the cards.
I sent an edited version of the demo along to the Virtual Focus Group to see if any of them brought up these issues themselves. Nobody (of the 14 people who responded) commented on the corners of the deck or any weirdness in the space between the cards. Four of them said the money didn’t look quite right. And almost all of them said they would only really be convinced of the trick if they could look at the money at the end. Of course, you can’t let them look at the money so this trick is useless in casual situations and probably unconvincing in a more formal setting.
Visually I think it’s an okay trick. I just don’t see anyone seeing it and saying, “He turned a deck of cards into money!” I see them saying, “He had what looked like a deck of cards and changed it into what looked like money.” That’s still somewhat interesting. But that’s the sort of thing that’s going to get you a “that’s clever” reaction rather than a reaction where people are truly awed.
I don’t like to tease you too much with anything, but while we were away, I think I may have invented one of the greatest card tricks of all time.
It’s a prediction trick that uses a borrowed, shuffled (even incomplete) deck. You never touch the cards. And the spectator makes the prediction.
I need to try it out more to really get it in shape, but if it works like I imagine it will, I will release it in some form in the future.. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll still describe what I had in mind in a post here and you’ll understand why I’m excited about it.
In the just-released July issue of the newsletter for supporters, I wrote:
“You could teach the dullest moron or a robot (or the offspring of those two things: Joshua Jay) to perform the Invisible Deck and it would still fool people.”
It took just 45 minutes before someone wrote me asking why I don’t like Joshua Jay.
So it’s time for my annual reminder that I actually do like Josh. I think he’s a great performer and teacher, and he’s always been a friend and supporter of my work, going back to the site I had in the early 2000s. In Josh I have the opportunity to talk shit about someone, which I enjoy doing, without that person getting all worked up about it.
So let me clarify again: I like Josh both personally and professionally. I’m a big fan of everything he does. He’s a good guy with a good sense of humor about himself. I have no ill-will towards him at all.
Hey, speaking of that douchebag, Joshua Jay. Did you guys get that email from Vanishing Inc yesterday? What’s the deal with that picture? Is it an angle thing or…
It doesn’t look like Josh missed leg day. It looks like he missed leg year. What the hell. I realize gyms are closed due to Covid-19, but he couldn’t manage to pop out a few bodyweight squats in the past three months? Has he been walking on his hands everywhere? When you’re standing next to Andi Gladwin, of all people—proud cover-boy of niche porn magazine, “Pasty Weakling Weekly”—and he looks sturdier and more robust than you in the lower body, it’s time to take a good hard look in the mirror.
No, Josh. That’s not a mirror. That’s a box of Double Pops.
