Salvage Yard: Alive

[This is a continuation on what I was talking about in yesterday’s post. Yesterday’s post was published later in the day because I forgot to schedule it. So you may need to go back and read yesterday’s post to put this in context.]

I mentioned yesterday about a new trick that uses a shitty force with a (potentially) strong reveal.

The trick is called Alive. It’s a trick where lines written on a notepad transform into a “random word” thought of by the spectator.

You can see the full demo here.

How do we get to this, “random word”?

Well, by asking them to look at the cover of the notebook and to pick out any “random word you see here, like wizard or key.”

Well, once you take “wizard” and “key” out of the equation, what exactly are your other options? Pretty much just LOVE staring you straight in the face.

This “force” of a word is not going to fool people. It won’t fool your smart friends. It won’t fool your dumb friends. If you’re sent back to the 1960s, and President Kennedy himself asked you to do table-hopping at a banquet dinner for this organization, it wouldn’t fool anyone there either. It’s just not deceptive.

The moving ink portion of the effect might be good, but not when attached to this method of forcing the word.

Oh, and another thing. The ad states:

“You show your prediction (a few lines in a random order) to the spectator and tell him this is his word written in the Japanese.”

Is this what you think Japanese writing looks like?

Just random lines strewn across a page? It doesn’t even work as a joke.

How would I fix this trick?

Let’s play around with some ideas.

Apparently you don’t have to force the word “Love.” It says you can set up the pad for “any” word, but there’s no way that’s true. So for the sake of exploring some ideas let’s just assume the word is “Love.”

You could fix the force to something not so fucking dopey.

You know that old force that’s in kids books where you ask someone to name vegetables (or something similar) and you write down the vegetables they say on different slips of paper? And then they freely choose one and you predicted it would be “carrot”? The method, as I’m sure you know, is simply to write down carrot on every slip, and make sure they name it at some point when they’re naming off vegetables. (There are ways to up the deceptiveness of that force, which I’ll get into in a future post.) By asking one member of a couple to name some feelings they have for the other person in the couple, you’re bound to hit on Love eventually

Or you could use a clear force bag, or the DFB app, or forcing the word “love” from a book, or from a list of words using Clippo. All of these are stronger than the force currently used in the trick. But I think a force might be the wrong option here.

I think it’s the wrong option because what is the reveal of the force? The reveal is random lines forming the word. The question becomes… why did you draw random lines? Just to move them so you could do the reveal? It doesn’t make sense. It’s using magic to make something more complicated than it would be otherwise. That’s not what magic should feel like.

If you’re going to use a force, don’t then write your prediction down after they think of the word. Instead, force the word, then show them the prediction that was already on the pad. “This is my generic prediction. It works for any word. Humans are built to see patterns in things. So if you concentrate on your word and look into these lines I can convince you it says anything.”

But I probably wouldn’t go with a force. I’d do something like this…

I’d pull out a piece of paper from the notebook and say I was going to write down a word. I’d write something down and fold the paper.

“I wrote a word on that paper. It’s a simple word. One syllable. And it’s a powerful word. I’m going to try and send you the thought of that word and you’re going to write it on this pad in a kind of ‘automatic writing.’” [I would explain the term if they weren’t familiar with that.]

I’d have them hold a sharpie (a dry one that doesn’t write) in their fist under the table. “Without looking you’re going to draw some random lines all over the page. Some short. Some long. Don’t think about it. Just let your subconscious take over.”

I would hold the pad under the table for them. You may not actually want them “drawing” on the gimmicked side of the pad, even with a dry marker. So I might turn the whole pad over under the table.

They would do their marks. I would know when to stop them because I have a general idea how many marks are on the prepped side of the pad.

I pull out the pad and hold it towards myself without looking at it.

“Do you have any idea what word I wrote down? As I said, it’s a short but powerful word.”

They may hit on “love.” It’s probably the most obvious answer. If they do, congratulate them and move forward.

Let’s say they don’t though. Let’s say they say, “Cock.”

“Short and powerful, yes. But no. That’s what your conscious mind suggested. I was trying to send a message to your unconscious mind. I believe you wrote ‘love’ on this pad without even thinking about.”

I take a peek at the pad.

I pause.

“Uhm… yup. You did.”

I pause, still looking at the paper.

“And more amazingly… you did it in Japanese,” I say, turning the pad towards them at the same time.

Now, the “Japanese writing” remark is you humorously scrambling to obviously spin something into a “win” for you. It’s much funnier that way.

“I know it looks like I screwed up. Or you screwed up. Or we both screwed. But actually, I do see the elements of love written here.”

Shake the pad and cause the word to form from the markings.

No shitty force. No force at all. Just magic.