Monday Mailbag #38
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Do you have any thoughts on Grandpa’s Top from Adam Wilber?
I really love the look and the story that goes along with it, but I’ve purchased a bunch of magic that I loved the look of, only to have it sit in a drawer somewhere. Will I regret this purchase? What do you think? —ST
What do I think of Grandfather’s Top? Well, I don’t like it nearly as much as grandma’s bottom.
The effect looks pretty good. I’m not 100% convinced that the vanish will look great in real life, but you could always leave that off if that’s an issue.
I’m not really an IT guy, other than Loops which I can keep on me without them getting in the way of things. I don’t know the hookup used here, but I would guess it would be the sort of thing that I wouldn’t want to have to deal with.
The bigger issue for me is the presentation. I don’t think it’s bad, I actually like it. “This is a top my grandfather gave me….” That’s perfectly fine. And I like to use a more heartfelt and personal type of presentation from time to time, as opposed to my typical presentations which are usually more ridiculous/fantastical.
But my rule is that I don’t use an earnest presentation that is so easily disproven as bullshit. It’s one thing if you’re a professional magician, and your audience assumes everything is a lie. But in a casual situation, this type of patter will hit differently (or, at least, it should hit differently) and I feel like you need to be more careful about using a presentation like this that would be very easy for people to realize is just a “stock” presentation (once a quick google search leads them to learn this a stock trick).
Think of it like this. If your friend told you a funny story that happened to him and later you realized it didn’t really happen to him, it was something he found online, you might find that a little weird. But you’d also probably understand it. The story is funnier if it’s in the first person, so he told you the story as if it happened to him. But if he told you a sweet, sincere story about some special moment he shared with a relative, and you found out that was something he found online, you’d think he was a lunatic.
This is probably not a huge issue for a lot of you, but I’m playing the long-game. I’m performing for friends. If I say something somewhat believable, (e.g., “When I was little, my grandpa gave me this toy that used to be his when he was young”) then I want them to at least half-believe it. And if they find out that story is just part of a trick that you can buy and pay for, then that’s going to get in the way of their engagement with future presentations that I want to establish.
So really it’s not the trick or the presentation I have an issue with. It’s just how easily “discoverable” this trick will be online. It’s such a specific trick that anyone with a particular interest in what you did could find it online with an obvious google search. I try to avoid that as much as possible. I want to give them no footholds to discover after the trick is over. I certainly don’t want them to find this story about my grandpa being told by a bunch of other people on youtube. But if that’s not the sort of thing you care about, then that’s not something you need to take into consideration.
Are there any magic theory books you rely on or would recommend? —KU
No. At this point I avoid most theory books. It’s not that I think they’re of no value. It’s because most weren’t written with my type of performing scenarios in mind, so a lot of what they write doesn’t apply to me. And I feel like I have enough time and opportunities to perform that if there is a fundamental “theory” to be found about some aspect of performing, then I will uncover it over time from audience feedback, and that will make it more concrete and real than if I had just read it in a book. And—just for the sake of this site—it’s more interesting to write about something that came from actual performing rather than saying, “Here’s something I read in a magic book.”
On top of that, most of the theory books that I have read in the past feel a little questionable to me. A lot of the theory seems derived from how they imagine the spectator is thinking, not from actually breaking down the tricks with spectators, which seems to me the only real way to get at some answers to these types of questions about performance.
And finally, when I watch a lot of the great magic theorists perform, I have no desire to perform in the manner they do. So it’s difficult to get excited about reading a book of their theory.
Just wanted to say I really enjoyed the blog yesterday about "social media magic." Your last paragraph really hit the nail on the head. Are you aiming for the most amount of views, likes, new penpals(?),or other digital stats, or are you aiming for a new experience? I think that's what I really enjoy about the Jerx style so thanks for continually making the thought process more and more clear.
On the exposure side of blog, one method of exposure I do love is exposing the easiest version of a trick to a friend and then doing that trick again while your friend is around so they think they know what to look for, but you do the trick with a different method the next time they are present in a group. They feel like they are on the in, you acknowledge subtly they are on the in, but they aren't. Your friend thinks they are watching you do a trick for the group, but really you have two audiences and two tricks going on at once. The group experiences the trick as normal, and your friend gets really confused because they don't see the method you fed them beforehand. I'm not sure if this is a Tamariz thing or a Jerx thing... but i feel like it has roots in both ways of thinking. I've done this and had a couple people come up to me afterwards saying "hey two weeks ago you explained the trick worked because of that second deal thing, but today Jessie dealt the cards into your hand herself.... what am I missing?!" And then go into whatever weird deflection that suits your style. —AM
Yeah, I’m a fan of anything along these lines. As I wrote in this post:
“Traditionally, talking with the audience about the concepts of secrets, gimmicks, magic shops, trick-cards, exposure, etc., might have been seen as undermining the magic. But in the world we live in now—where almost all magic secrets can be found on a device in everyone’s pocket—messing with their understanding of secrets and gimmicks and those sorts of things, can be one of the strongest ways to fool them.”
This isn’t the sort of thing you want to overuse, because it loses its potency with people over time. But every now and then, “teaching” someone something and then using that information against them to fool them at a later date is a very strong way of messing with their heads.