Mending Socks

Did you ever end up working on the Michel Huot trick Socks? I know you mentioned it in a previous post, but I don’t believe you had it at the time. If you picked it up since then and have any thoughts, I’d like to hear them. It’s gone over well, but not great in my experience. —AJ

I don’t own this, but I see a fairly significant issue with the way it’s presented.

In every performance of this trick that I’ve seen, the construction of the effect is terrible. In the first phase, the spectator picks two cards with socks on them that match the socks you’re wearing. In the second phase you make all the sock cards match.

Nobody cares about the second phase.

Not only does nobody care about it, but it makes the first phase less impressive because it no longer feels like they plucked two random cards out of a mess of different cards. The feeling now is that you actually had more control over the cards than they originally thought.

So I wouldn’t bother with the second phase.

Or, if you’re going to do both phases, reverse them so the trick builds properly. First you have the “card trick” portion of the effect, followed by the socks matching in the real world. This makes much more sense than a match that happens in the real world, and then following it up with a little card trick.

Here’s the construction I’d use. You want the effect to build, but you also don’t want the sock revelation to be too far after the selection of the sock cards.

I would have the force sock cards in my breast pocket (the pocket that’s in front of my beautiful breast). I wouldn’t have them involved in the first phase.

I’d offer to demonstrate an incredible power I have. I’d show all the cards as non matching, then I’d explain:

“When I do laundry at home I don’t have to go to the trouble of matching up my socks. All I do is dump them in my sock drawer and wiggle my fingers.”

I’d then wiggle my fingers at the cards for an uncomfortably long period of time.

“That should do it,” I’d say. And then I’d show that now all the cards match.

Then I’d put the cards away in my pocket, on top of the force cards. After a few beats I’d say something like, “I can teach you how to do it too.”

I’d remove all the cards from my pocket, shuffle them up, and then force the two cards on the spectator in some manner.

“Let’s see if you found a matching pair.”

I’d show their chosen sock cards didn’t match.

“That’s okay, you haven’t done the matching wiggle yet.” And I’d have them wiggle their fingers at the cards. “Wiggling fingers” is as dull an Imp as snapping is, but in this case that’s part of the joke of the effect.

When she wiggles her finger I would continually criticize and correct her.

“No, not like that. Like this.”

Disgustedly: “What are you doing? Are you even paying attention to how I’m doing it?”

I’d slap her hands away. “Stop. You’re embarrassing yourself. Do it like I’m doing it.”

The joke being, of course, that there is no difference between the way we’re wiggling our fingers.

Eventually I’d say, “Okay, thats close enough.” Let her wiggle her fingers towards the cards. “Let’s see how you did.” I’d turn the cards over and show nothing had changed.

“Hey, I didn’t say it was easy. You just don’t have ‘it',’ I’m afraid.”

As I’m condescending to her, I would sort of shift in my seat a little and look down and “notice” something.

“Dammit… what did you do?” I’d ask. And reveal that—instead of causing the cards to match each other—her inexpert, indiscriminate wiggling has caused my socks to match the selected cards.

“Please, please, please,” I’d say. “Wiggle them back. I have a big business meeting later. I can’t go in with mismatched socks. They’ll laugh me out of the room.”

For me, this would be a much more fun way to play the trick. Having your prediction on your feet is good, but it’s also a little like, “Hey… aren’t I clever?” Whereas this presentation lets me play conceited and condescending as I preen over my incredible wiggling technique and sock-card matching skills. (Imagine the way Will Ferrell would do that part.) And then when my socks “change” in the real-world, it comes off as a magical punchline, rather than just a clever way to reveal a prediction.