Dear Jerxy: On Switching
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Dear Jerxy: Now that I've started doing your type of magic, I find that many outstanding experiences require the simplest thing -- often, just a switch. But it gets harder with these bespoke tricks because now I'm switching rocks, notes, video games, artwork or boxes. Are there any switches you always come back to? I know you're going to say I'm overthinking it -- just lap it or use an offbeat or move a pillow around... I think about those too! But I wonder if you have gimmicks or specific switches that give you a lot of mileage because I need to expand my switching repertoire. Z-wallets, Quiver, Angel Case, thumbtips, etc...
Signed,
Looking for a Switch Bitch Session in Los Angeles
Dear Looking: This is a good question for which you have accurately predicted I will have an unsatisfying answer. Other than a thumbtip, I don’t use any switching props/gimmicks that regularly. Although I do have a z-wallet, Quiver, Angel Case, and so on, and they all work great for what they do. The issue, for the amateur performer, is if you place something in a little leather pouch and it changes to something else, you may have performed a good trick. But the next time that spectator sees you place something in a little leather pouch and it changes to something else, they’re going to think, “Oh, I guess that little leather pouch changes stuff.” That’s also true for an unusual wallet, or a black envelope, or a hinged box. Used once they might not draw much attention to themselves. But if a spectator notes that every time you place something in this particular container, it changes to something else, the container becomes suspect.
So I do tend towards prop-less switching (or invisible gimmicks like a thumbtip). And the prop-less methods for switching do tend to be situation-dependent, audience-dependent, timing-dependent, and object-dependent. So it’s hard to give specific advice on what switch to use.
Instead I will give you two general switching tips that I’ve found to significantly cut down on the “you must have switched it” answer from people.
Motivate Your Movement - If the object of the spectator’s interest goes out of view for a moment, it’s quite easy for them to think that maybe it was switched. But if it happens in the process of a recognizable human action then, in my experience, it becomes much more psychologically invisible.
If you’re watching me perform and I have you shuffle a deck and I take it back and then at some point the deck dips under the table’s edge for a moment, that might raise some suspicion on your part. Even if it happens on an “off beat.”
But if you shuffle a deck and I take it back and at some point adjust my chair, I find the suspicion to be much less. Even though “adjusting my chair” involved the same action of the deck of cards going under the table for a bit. The normal human motivation of grabbing my seat and pulling it in a little is so recognizable that it drowns out the “questionable” moment of my hands going out of site. Not completely, and not 100% of the time. But as a general principle, it seems to work very well.
So try to give the movement required by your switches a recognizable motivation and that will go a long way to hiding the switch.
(And no, putting your hands in your pockets as a sign of “relaxation” doesn’t count. Magicians think this looks casual, but most of the time they’re wrong. Showing someone a magic trick is an act of inviting them to see something exciting or interesting. And that’s incongruous with the pose of just leaning back with your hands in your pockets. So even if they don’t think, “I bet he’s getting something from his pocket” or, “I bet he’s ditching something in his pocket,” I do think it’s a pose that doesn’t quite feel right. )
Maintain a Constant - I use this a lot, and I think it’s really deceptive. The idea is this: If you have something that’s being switched, try to have some element of that thing that is never switched.
For example:
If you want to switch a pen that works for one that doesn’t, then it’s particularly fooling if the cap is on the table or in the spectator’s hand before and after the switch. The cap is the constant. The pen came out of that cap and it goes back into that cap, so I think that helps it feel like the same pen.
It’s better to switch the drawer of a matchbox, and place it into the sleeve that never left their sight, than to switch the entire matchbox.
Overwhelmingly, I’ve found the most fooling deck switch to be one where some cards are already in play, and you switch out all the other cards. Then the cards that are in play are added back to the switched in deck (which is missing those cards, of course).
Obviously, I can’t always work a switch in this manner, but I do so whenever I can.
Off of This Couch
For a long time this was one of the main ways I performed Out of This World. It uses both of the elements described above.
My friend and I would be sitting on the couch. I’d have her shift down so there was some space between us. I’d give her a deck to shuffle. A matching deck, separated into red cards and black cards (and missing the Ace of Spades and the Ace of Hearts) would be behind a throw pillow, between my leg and the couch, in the crack where the cushion meets the couch, or under my leg.
When she got done shuffling the deck I’d tell her to pull out the Ace of Hearts and Ace of Spades and set them face up on the cushion between us.
I’d hold the deck in my hand and have her direct me on where to put each card; on the heart if it was red, on the spade if it was black.
After a few cards had been dealt on each ace, I would notice the cards sliding due to the cushion not being completely flat. I’d look around to decide a better place to do this, gather up the cards that had been dealt already, and suggest we move this over to the kitchen table.
In the process of getting up, my hand that was holding the deck would be blocked from her view by my body. And in standing up, I’d drop the shuffled deck behind the pillow and pick up the prepared deck.
I’d have her grab the aces and we’d move over to the table. I’d deal a few cards at her direction, but eventually I would just hand her the deck to deal through and complete the OOTW effect in a standard manner.
Each step here feels either very clean or very logical.
They shuffle the deck - Clean
They remove the aces - Clean
I take the deck and immediately take the cards one by one from the top of the deck for them to mentally assess - Clean
The fact that we’re doing this on the couch, causes the packets to slide around, making it a bit disorganized. - Logical
I suggest moving this process to the kitchen table - Logical
The only moment that might need some justification is why I take the deck back after she shuffles it. Why don’t I just have her deal the cards? The logic I use is that I’m going to mentally send her the color of each card. So obviously I need to see each one, so it makes sense that I would hold the deck. It’s only once we relocate to the table and we’ve started over and I’ve dealt a few cards again that I say, “You’re doing really good, actually. I think you could do this without me.” And hand the deck to them to deal the cards.
This makes sense, and it escalates the effect in a nice way.
Now, objectively speaking, there is obviously plenty of time for me to switch the deck using this handling. But I don’t remember that idea ever coming out of a spectator when I used this method. And that’s saying something, because switches are a pretty common conclusion that spectators come to for all types of tricks. I’ve had them think a switch was involved with OOTW when I used methods that didn’t use any switch. So a version of OOTW that uses a genuinely spectator-shuffled deck and doesn’t scream switch, indicates to me that the fundamental techniques used must be fairly strong.