Dear Jerxy: De-Transitioning

Dear Jerxy: You have often discussed how to transition a conversation into your performing some magic, but I’ve read less about the awkward problem of transitioning back. It seems prudent to have a “de-transition" already established for each trick. Otherwise, after you have drawn everyone’s attention to you, the conversation comes to an abrupt and awkward halt. Or worse, they get together and brainstorm about the trick and possibly solve it.

I’ve been discussing this with some magician friends and here are the basic techniques we have come up with.

1. Let people discuss the effect, while in response to questions one maintains the “unbelievable premise” in the Jerx mode of blurring the effect into the surrounding reality.

2. Take the lead in restarting the conversation; e.g., by having the effect “remind” you of something one of the other people in the group has experienced and asking them about that. (A list of techniques for this would be handy.)

3. Exit the stage temporarily: leave the room to get a drink or go to the restroom. By the time you return, the conversation will have changed.

4. Exit the stage completely: make the effect the last thing you do at that social gathering.

Do you have any other suggestions?

Signed,
The After-Magic-Peformance Approach X-aminer

Dear TAMPAX: This is a good subject for a question, but I don’t think I quite find myself in the situation you described that often, so I’m not sure I have a great answer for you.

But the question of what I do after a trick is a good one, and not one I’ve really considered too much until now. Here, I think, is the reason why I haven’t given it too much thought. It’s sort of like asking a centerfielder, “Where do you go when the ball is hit?” On one level, it’s an impossible question to answer specifically. He might run back towards the fence, he might run in, he might run to his left or he might run to his right. There’s no real way of knowing. The obvious answer is that he’s going to run to where the ball is hit.

When I’m showing someone a trick, and the trick comes to an end, I want to be like that centerfielder. I don’t want to have a plan for what I’m going to do. I want to be on the balls of my feet waiting to see where their reaction goes and then I go and meet them there.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. What do you do if you do a trick and it’s met with indifference? What if I show someone a trick and they say, “Oh, cool. Are you ready to go to the movie now?” In that case, I would say, “Sure, yeah, let’s get going.” If someone responds in a way that suggests what they saw didn’t matter to them, I’m not going to try and convince them that it should matter to them. I’ll just let the moment pass.

But I have to be honest, this almost never happens to me. And that’s not because I’m such a brilliant magician that everything I do garners an amazing reaction. It’s just because I don’t bother showing magic too often to people who haven’t shown a significant amount of enthusiasm for seeing magic.

I’ve turned the entire magician/spectator dynamic around. I never feel like I’m being judged. I feel like I’m judging their reactions to see if they’re the sort of person I want to show things to in the future. Are they a good dance partner for this type of interaction?

Sure, sometimes I’m testing out a trick or a concept and I’m looking for their “judgment” in regards to whatever I’m testing out. But outside of that, their reactions are best used by me to cultivate an audience of people who are into magic the way I want to do it.

So if I get an indifferent reaction, it’s almost always on the first trick they’ve ever seen from me. And in that case, it’s not such a big deal because it’s always something fairly quick and low stakes.

Okay, but let’s talk about “de-transitioning” in general. To do that I want to remind you of the understanding I have with the people I perform for. They know what they’re seeing is a trick that has been dressed up to be a bit more immersive. And they get that I’m playing around with a certain amount of reality and a lot of fantasy. They may not know quite where reality and fantasy meet. But they know that if I demonstrate something insane, the appropriate response isn’t spending the rest of the night screaming, “What the fuck!” and shitting themselves. The appropriate response is maybe a few minutes of afterglow and then moving on to whatever else your time together holds.

I would say there are three primary responses I get when showing someone a magic trick.

Amazed - This comes in the form of a gasp, or laughter, or cursing, or a dazed look, or hitting me, or whatever the case may be.

Engaged - With my friends who are more theatrical or comedic, or just friends with “sillier” personalities, they may feel the amazement of the trick and then re-engage with the premise. So if we’re doing a trick that involves a voodoo doll of their ex-boyfriend, they will usually feel that initial reaction of amazement and after a little while of that, they may click back over into the world of the presentation. So, for example, they may pick up the voodoo doll and start flicking it in the crotch or something because that’s in line with the premise that there is a real connection between this doll and someone they don’t like.

Skeptical - After the surprise of the climax of a trick, they may being to question things. “Is that a normal deck?” “Can I look at that coin?” And so on.

There are probably other reactions as well, but these are the primary ones. And usually a spectator’s reaction will be some mixture of the three.

Now, just like the centerfielder, my instinct is to move in the direction of their reaction. Because what these reactions have in common is that they will fade over time. So it’s not an issue of “transitioning” out of the trick. For me it’s an issue of riding along the wave of their reaction.

How I Handle Each Reaction

Here’s how I ride out each reaction type. I’ll start with the easiest ones to explain.

Skeptical - If the audience is questioning certain elements and wants to examine things or ask about certain details of the trick, then I just go along with it. I generally don’t bother with a trick unless the objects in play that might demand scrutiny are examinable. So I’m happy to indulge their skepticism when it exists. I don’t change the subject, I don’t move onto the next trick. I’ve found that one of the best ways to get people to be less “method focused” in future tricks, is to let them burn out on searching for a method during an earlier trick. If a person is ONLY ever skeptical, then it’s usually not someone I would show too much magic to.

Engaged - I join back in with them. If they flick the voodoo dolls crotch, I’ll take it from them and bite the crotch and shake it like a dog’s chew toy. Essentially I’ll play along as long as they’re leading me to continue doing so. That’s going to be a few minutes at most. They’re not going to be like, “Let’s pretend there’s a psychic ghost here all night!” But as long as they want to hit the ball towards me, I’ll hit it back.

Amazed (or shocked, mystified, awed, etc.) - If they’re just sitting there, taking it all in and processing it and responding very positively towards the sense of not knowing what just happened, then I think what you generally want to do is not get in the way of that. Let them sit with the feeling.

Here is a the strategy I use:

If the trick has a premise where I’m the one behind the incredible thing they just saw—like, for example, if I just read their mind in some way—then I will sort of lean back and distract myself with some simple Rep. I’ll tell you why I do this. I think one of the most awkward things is where you’re like, “I just read your mind. Now I’m going to focus my attention on you and your reaction. Give me the validation which I so crave.”

I don’t want to inject myself into their reaction. I want them to feel whatever they feel. So I might just lean back and rub my temples a little bit or clench and unclench my jaw. That way, when they look to me, they don’t see someone who’s like, “Huh? Huh? Whaddya think? Pretty cool, huh?” Nor am I ignoring the thing that just happened. Instead, I’m subtly reacting in a way that is consistent with the premise. So if they’re really amazed, they don’t look over and see someone who is seeking praise. And they don’t see someone who is ignoring what just occurred. Instead they see someone still in the world where the amazing thing happened which directs them back towards their reaction to the trick.

If the trick has a premise where I’m supposedly not behind what it is we just saw, then I will mirror their amazement. I will sit back and process what we both just saw. Then, as I sense their amazement starting to fade, I will be the one who gets skeptical. I will be the one who starts asking questions, but all my questions will be designed to reinforce the strength of the trick. “Wait… wait. Did you shuffle the deck? You did? Hmmm. And that’s just a normal deck? There’s nothing special about it? Okay… shit… I have no clue then.”

So that is how I would ride the reaction out and let the moment gently pass, as opposed to actively trying to “de-transition” to something else.

Now, to be fair, in everything I’ve written here, I’ve sort of ignored the part of your question that implies I’m performing for a group of people. And that’s because I just don’t try to do stuff that is very emotionally-resonant, or super immersive, or intensely personal with a group of more than a couple people (except in rare situations where the group has been highly curated by me). I just don’t think it’s possible with a group.

With one or two people I can craft an experience that feels very personal and unique to us. With a group, my goal is just to show them something interesting or entertaining. And that situation rarely ends awkwardly because I make it clear that this is jut for fun, I’m not here to impress anyone, and I choose material that would be very difficult for a group to unravel unless someone there had a background in magic.

In large social situations I’m almost never like, “Gather round, everyone! The magician is here! Me, that is. I’m the magician. Pay attention to me” No. In those situations, if I’m performing, then it means I pulled a person or two aside a couple of times over the course of the evening and showed them something. From those “performances,” more people may come to me over the course of the night because they heard about something I did. And I will show those people something. That’s usually how I perform in a “group” setting.

Because of the nature of they type of stuff I perform, there is rarely a sense that everyone should gather around and watch me “perform” as a group. It has happened, and I’ve had fun with it. But it hasn’t happened enough for me to come up with a plan for when it does. So I can’t really answer your question in the way it was originally expressed. But perhaps you can extrapolate how I do handle the post-trick period in my situation and find a way to apply some elements to your own situation.