Monday Mailbag #63
/I know you have better things to do, but I saw a subliminal message in Ellusionist’s Royal Road to Mentalism Volume 2 trailer at around the 2:06 mark it shows the word BUY in white letters. —DJ
Okay, here’s the moment you’re talking about:
Now, look, I like to bust Ellusionist’s balls as much as anyone, but I find it hard to get too worked up about this for a few reasons:
It hardly seems subliminal to me. It’s quick, but obvious.
If they wanted to put a subliminal message in their video, wouldn’t they do so during the part of the video people watched? Not the closing logo that no one is paying attention to.
I can understand why people might be concerned if a movie theater flashes “Buy Coke” in the middle of a movie. But a “subliminal” message that says “Buy”… in an ad for the product itself? I already know they want me to buy the product. That’s why they made this ad.
Even if this message was “subliminal” there’s pretty much zero evidence in the scientific literature that this sort of thing even works. So I’m not too concerned.
In fact, just to be safe, I quickly watched all 23 copies of this download that I bought to see if there were any other hidden messages, and I didn’t find anything really.
It’s been over a decade since I’ve played card games with friends, but it’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing. Recently some friends and I decided to get together to play poker and I’m hosting, which means there could be plenty of opportunities and Hooks to get into a magic trick.
I’m curious about your experiences playing card games and performing magic. Almost everyone I’ll be playing with has seen me perform some magic before, so I’ve already been getting the good-natured teasing about playing cards against a magician. It’s a friendly game, so I’m not worried about being accused of cheating or anything, but I was wondering how often this comes up with you when you play cards. Do you have any ways of deflecting or even playing into that vibe when playing cards? —DW
I enjoy taking part in a game night from time to time, but I haven’t been part of a regular poker night in a while, so I don’t have too many ideas for this particular circumstance.
Generally, I’ve never thought it was a good idea to do something too similar to the game you’re playing. If Im at a poker game, I’m not going to do a poker trick. Or even a gambling trick, really. Doing a trick thats like, “This is how I cheat at poker,” is a weird thing to do when you’re gathered together for a poker night, in my opinion. I’m sure some magicians would say that’s the perfect time to do. But for me it feels awkward. So I might do a card trick, but it would be unrelated to gambling. Or I might do a trick that’s in the format of a quick game, but it wouldn’t be a card game. That’s where my head is at.
There’s an easy way to set Hooks when you’re performing in a card game that you host. Just put something that shouldn’t be there in the deck; an odd-backed card, or a card with something drawn on the back or whatever. Now, the cards are taken out and shuffled and this oddity is spotted. “Ah, sorry, that shouldn’t be in there. It’s okay. The deck is complete.” You set the oddity aside. Then later, during a break, you pick up the oddity and say to someone nearby, “Want to see something interesting?” And now they’re going to get the answer as to why this blue card was in the red deck, or why this card with the arrow on the back was in the deck, etc. It’s an intriguing callback moment.
Here’s a game night trick that I’ve done in the past. (It works best for a group you don’t play card games with regularly.) At the beginning of the night, someone other than me opens up one of the card boxes and dumps out the deck. But it’s not a normal deck of cards. It’s a deck of cards that’s just one solid block. All the cards are stuck together. And there are people’s names written on this block.
“Ah, sorry,” I say. “My bad.” I take this weird object back and set it aside, while I grab another deck.
We use this new deck throughout the night.
At the end of the evening, I offer to show them a trick. It’s a short ambitious card routine. And at the end the deck—the one we’ve been using all night—solidifies into one single block of cards. Which I then have everyone sign and I keep as a souvenir of the evening.
So, this is just a way of doing Paul Harris’ Solid Deception.
Now, just to be clear, the block that is removed at the beginning is not supposed to be the same block of cards that appears at the end. This isn’t some sort of time-travel effect or something. The purpose of the block at the beginning is to plant a seed of, “What is that thing?” Then at the end, long after the first block has been forgotten, they get the answer. “Ah! So the deck magically becomes one unit and he has everyone write their name on it as a memento of the evening. That’s what we saw earlier tonight too.”
You don’t have to have the first block as part of the presentation. You could, of course, just perform Solid Deception at the end of the night. But I like the idea of bringing it full circle and making it feel like, “Oh, I see. This is something he does on nights he wants to remember. This is a night he wants to remember.”