Dustings #28
/As I mentioned previously, I won’t be using this site for non-magic posts anymore. There still may be some posts on productivity or mindset stuff that I’ve found works for me—as I don’t see that stuff as completely disconnected from what I write about here. But for music/tv/horror movie recommendations, and things like that, I will be using this new site. I’ll probably post at most a few times a month. There’s no need to follow it too closely unless you’re particularly inclined to. Once a month or so I’ll give a heads-up here about whatever new posts are there, so you can check it out if you’re interested.
The reason for separating out these posts is two-fold. First, to keep this site more focused, as I’m presuming most people are here just for the magic content. Second, to keep people without an interest in magic from stumbling on the site after they google some obscure band I’m into or something like that.
The blog is called Dispatches from Marmalade Falls, which is a reference to something I used to do in the old JAMM magazines.
It’s written from the perspective of an enthusiastic man who takes joy from a lot of things and who has just moved back to his hometown of Marmalade Falls to help take care of his recently widowed mother.
The “enthusiastic man who takes joy from a lot of things” is a pretty accurate self-assessment, but most of the other personal details on the site are made up.
The first three posts up now are:
A welcome post
Some favorite songs from 2020
How to enjoy TV watching more
Congratulations to Joshua Jay on the release of his new book, Dream Machine, which is a book designed to be used with young children as part of their nighttime routine before they go to bed.
This is a great addition to the Joshua Jay series of books that put you to sleep.
As that was my first shot at Joshua Jay in the new season, I want to make my annual point that I actually like Josh. I’m a fan of his. He’s a fan of mine. We get along perfectly fine. He’s just my go-to person to talk shit about because he can take it. (I think he can, at least. I mean, maybe he spends his nights crying into his Dream Machine book.)
My old blog, back in the mid-2000s was much more confrontational and shit-talky. Lots of people enjoyed it like that. I enjoyed it too. But now that I’m the voice of a generation of magicians, I have to be careful. They say: With great power comes… hmm… I don’t remember. Is it something about fudge? I forget what it is exactly. But I know they say something.
Anyway, with my old blog there were a bunch of fucking nerds who would want to start shit with me because I said something they didn’t like. And then I’d have to pretend like I gave a shit about them one way or the other and we’d have some public back and forth, and it was always a bloodbath because they couldn’t formulate a compelling thought to save their lives. So then it became the equivalent of them setting a ball on the tee for me, and me crushing that shit half a mile over the outfield fence. Then they’d get all mad and threaten to beat me up, threaten to get the site taken down, tell me I was going to get cancer, tell me they were going to sue me, or have me thrown in jail. (Scroll way, way down to the MCJ Advent Calendar I did on this site in December 2015 for a trip down memory lane.)
At the time, I was writing MCJ when I was working a day-job in the field of medical copywriting. So bashing some magic dullards was preferable to thinking about whatever mysterious bacteria or new breed of herpe I was supposed to be writing about. But now my time is my own, so pretending to care enough about some goof in order to write about them is just not a rewarding way to spend my time. Instead I just want to write about the things that get me excited, not pointing out how lame some other magician is. That sort of thing only works when you’re low down on the totem pole, not when you’re the Tipsie Award winning person behind the most acclaimed writing in modern magic. If I attack almost anyone it would be seen as punching down. Who can I go after? David Copperfield. Hmm… maybe, I guess. Derren Brown? That’s guy’s my puppet.
But, that being said, I do still like the artistry of some well-constructed shit-talk. So I just use Josh as the go-to butt of my jokes. That way I don’t have to deal with some angry-worded email from some other magician who didn’t have friends growing up and thus they take every silly joke as if it’s an attack.
But hey, look, if you’re someone who is known in the magic world and you’re okay with me taking shots at you as well, just send me an email with, “You have my permission to roast my ass,” in the subject line. (It would be particularly helpful to me if you’re at least somewhat fat.)
Speaking of magicians being delicate little babies who can’t handle criticism, there used to be an excellent twitter account called Magic Transcribed. This account would post video clips of magicians and transcribe their performances. That’s all the account did. They didn’t comment on the performances, they just posted them. The site was removed from twitter a few weeks ago.
I tried to figure out why and I reached out to the young lady who ran the account and a couple JERX: UK members who are also part of the Magic Circle. I had heard the Magic Circle had issues with the account and were trying to get it taken down for “bullying.” That’s a fascinating definition of the word “bullying”: posting—without comment— performance clips that were available online. There are some real fragile-ass dudes in the magic community.
Anyway, the twitter account had that going on and some DMCA strikes against it and ultimately it got removed from Twitter. But now she has an instagram, which you can find here. I’ve told her if she wants to give a more detailed explanation of what went on with the account that I’d post it here.
I’ll also post the Magic Circle’s side of the story here as well, because I guarantee you it would be hilarious.
I received a major award recently. It was quite unexpected. It just showed up in the Jerx PO Box. I don’t live in the area of the PO Box, and I didn’t know I had anything coming, so I hadn’t told my friend who monitors the box to be looking for anything. So it came as a surprise to both of us when he randomly checked the box, found a package, and when I told him to open it up and tell me what was inside, he said, “A golden thumbtip.”
But not just any golden thumbtip. A Sarah Trustman First Annual Tipsie Award Golden Thumbtip.
I’m no metallurgist, but the front of the award features what I believe to be a 24k gold thumbtip. The engraving on the back (done using a very expensive process that mimics the look of Sharpie marker) reads:
Sarah Trustman’s
First Annual
Tipsies
Awarded to Andy Jerxmann
For advancing magic by writing truth
2020
I didn’t know Sarah before receiving this, but it turns out she is an author, artist, mnemonist, and—I think it’s fair to say because I received this award—a keen judge of genius.
So thanks to Sarah (and Dan Harlan). With this and my Tarbell award, I am just one award* away from achieving magic’s Triple Crown!
* (The Goshman Golden Sponge Ding-Dong for Excellence in Genital-Centric Magic.)
If there’s something you’d like to send to me via mail, the address is:
White Wand
PO Box 2026
Liverpool, NY 13089
Don’t put “Andy” or Jerx on there, just use that address. It’s best if you email me to let me know something is on the way, or else it may be some time before someone picks it up.