Dustings #36
/If you’re one of the smart ones who sets an alarm for 3am Eastern Time to get the new posts right when they’re fresh out of the oven, you may still have time to jump on this kickstarter that’s about to end.
It’s called the ForeverPen and it’s this tiny little pen that writes without ink.
Chris G. wrote in to suggest the idea of making a thumbwriter with the material the pen is made out of. But even before the email was over, he kind of came to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t necessary. I agree. If the writing looked more like pen ink than pencil, it might make some sense. But to me it sort of looks like pencil.
So you’re probably better off just sticking with led/graphite or whatever and replacing it when you need to. For most of us, that’s not very often. Very few people are taking their notes for law school with a nailwriter/thumbwriter, so the longevity of the writing medium isn’t a huge priority.
That being said, I still think the ForeverPen may have some magic uses. For one it gives you an unobtrusive way to have a pen always on you. And as I was writing about in the last post, the more things you can have on you, the greater your options are when you’re creating your repertoire. So you can use it in an overt way and just use it when you need something to write with in an off-the-cuff routine. It could serve as a minor point of interest for people. They’ll say, “Look at that guy’s little pen!” (As opposed to the way you usually hear that sentence—with an “is” before the exclamation point.)
And you could use it covertly as pocket-writing tool as well (or “in the lap” writing, which is how I normally do any routines that were originally designed to be done in the pocket).
So just a heads up for anyone who might have a use for this. You’ve got 10 more hours from the time this post goes up to get in on the kickstarter. But, of course, I’m sure it will be available in some form after that ends as well.
Guys, you’ll be proud of me, I used some “magical thinking” in my real life.
I went with my friend to the auto body shop because he had a small dime-sized dent in the back right panel of his car.
The guy at the shop told my friend that in order to remove the dent they’d need to drill a small hole in the door jamb on the passenger side so they could get their tool back behind the panel and push out the dent from the inside. That seems needlessly destructive, but apparently this is how paintless dent removal works. They need to get behind the dent.
The guy at the shop said they’d put a little plug thing in the hole and since it’s in a part of the car that you can’t see unless the door is open, it’s not really a big deal. The plug he was talking about looks like this:
My friend said, “Well, it’s a lease. Is it going to be an issue if there’s a hole in the door jamb when it comes time to turn the car in?”
The shop guy said he didn’t really know. So we just sat there for a while deciding what to do. My friend didn’t want to drive around with this dent for another year in his nice car. But he didn’t know what the repercussions would be if they drilled the hole.
Suddenly I was hit with a bit of inspiration. When you’re a magician and you want to ditch something hidden in your right hand in your pocket casually, what do you do?
The answer is you put both hands in your pocket. This looks like a casual, relaxed gesture more-so than just sticking your right hand in your pocket.
So I said, “Drill a hole in the driver’s side door jamb too.”
My theory being that if there are two identical holes in both door jambs then it will seem like they’re somehow supposed to be there—it will seem less conspicuous than a hole on one side. And I feel like it gives my friend more deniability should the holes be spotted. “Those holes aren’t supposed to be there? That’s news to me. I never even noticed them. Are you sure? Why would I drill holes in my door jamb? Could this have happened at the factory or the dealership?”
Of course the other argument could be made that I’ve now doubled the likelihood of these holes being noticed when the car is returned at the end of the lease.
We’ll see, because they did go ahead and drill the second hole. I’ll update you in a year when the lease is over if anything happens.
This image comes from a booklet I’ve posted about previously on the site.
While it’s a great, simple way to transmit numbers between partners, it becomes a total mindfuck when used to transmit words via morse code. I’ve written about how useful I find morse code in a previous post. In this case you would do a short clamp of the jaw for a dot and hold it for a dash. You can put your fingers on your temples and feel how this feels. It’s very easy to distinguish the two.
I’ve used this method with some regularity in the past. When you just transmit numbers, I find people seem to come up with a solution. Usually not the correct one, but they think the person might be moving their head in a certain way to indicate a number. With words, they have no clue. Although this comes from an old kid’s magic pamphlet, it’s actually a strong effect that way. And it’s sort of fun to practice with someone.
I’ve had a couple magician friends who were particularly good at transmitting and receiving morse code. We would often do tricks where we transmitted information via foot taps under the table. There were a few times where we would just do it improvisationally. As in, we knew the other person was attempting to send us something, but we never spoke what the actual method was going to be so we’d just have to look for whatever thing the other person might be doing to send the letters, while they cycled through the word over and over. Like it might be how they were tapping a pencil against their chin or pacing the floor.
One time I was trying to pick up on what my friend was sending me for a long time, but I wasn’t getting anything, and we had to admit that our psychic connection failed. When I got him alone I asked him how he was trying to send me the letters. He said, “I was doing it with my breathing.” He was doing short and long breaths. This was, admittedly, a bit too subtle for me.
For $40 you can get a chop cup made to look like a Play-Doh cup.
Or for 50 cents you can get a Play-Doh cup and remind yourself that Play-Doh already sticks to the inside and realize that maybe it doesn’t make a ton of sense to use a ball in a chop cup routine that has the well-understood quality that it gets stuck in the cup.
