After the Magic
/Here’s a little tip for when considering what magic items to purchase or perform.
I think a lot of us simply think about the moment of magic, and imagine how that will play out.
“I’m going to hold the spoon and they’re going to see it bend without me doing anything to the spoon!” And then we imagine the spectator being blown away as they see the spoon melting.
What I’m surprised by is how little time is spent thinking about what happens after the magical moment.
A lot of magicians live in some fictional world where an audience is super amazed by the spoon bending, and then when the trick is over they say, “Okay, thanks. No questions here. Moving on.”
That’s not real life. After the magic, the spectator will want to see the spoon. And if it turns out it’s kind of weird looking, doesn’t match any other spoons in the venue, is extra flimsy, or it feels like it just came out of the freezer or whatever… then they’re just going to say, “Oh, I guess there’s something weird about this spoon.”
After the magic is when the magic happens.
The “magic moment” is generally less important than what happens afterward.
Okay, Andy, that’s maybe true sometimes. But what if you have a super visual magic moment?
In that case, it becomes even more true. If the coin very visibly penetrates the bottle, then they want to get a look at that bottle afterwards even more so.
The myth in the magic community is that you can use “audience management” to somehow get people disinterested in the thing that just did something impossible. Nope. Sometimes you can use your skill at manipulating an audience to get them focused on the wrong thing. But if they establish a focus of interest or suspicion on something, you can’t get them to drop that just by your charm or “distracting” them with another trick.
What brings this subject to mind is this trick Lumos, which comes from Hanson Chien. who consistently brings something at least interesting to the table with his releases.
In Lumos you smile and your mouth flashes.
What a charming effect! It mimics a classic visual from movies and cartoons. A character smiles and a glint of light comes from their mouth.
The ad copy says:
Let’s say you are at a party and want to approach someone, but you are at the loss for words. LUMOS is here to help.
All you got to do is WAVE, NOD, and the TWINKLE SMILE!
With the help of LUMOS, you can steal hearts instantly without saying a word.
Great! But can we spend at least 6 fucking seconds imaging what happens after the magical moment?
You know, the point where you flashed your brilliant smile and the other person is amazed? What do we imagine happens next? Do they immediately stare down at the floor? Do they run the other direction? Do they click a button and an ejection seat in their barstool sends them hurtling up and through the roof?
No. I’m going to guess they’d be a little taken aback and intrigued by what the just saw and they’ll look at you. In fact, they’re going to look at you more intently than they were before.
And what do you do? Do you try to speak with something the size of a peach pit rattling around in your mouth?
Or do you raise a napkin and spit the little plastic cockroach that caused the flash into your hand and stuff it in your pocket?
Either way, after the magic they’ll realize where the light came from. There’s no way out of this moment other than for them to be acutely aware that you’ve got something in your mouth that flashes a light.
While I’m not trying to convince anyone my mouth actually flashes with light when I smile. I CERTAINLY don’t want them to think I carry around some little device and put it in my mouth so I can pretend my mouth flashes when I smile. I’d rather fucking swallow the damn thing and dig through my shit the following day looking for the flashing fecal nugget. Yes, there’s a 90% chance I’ll choke to death on it. But that death has at least a touch more dignity than the alternative. If you “flash” your smile and then turn away and spit something into your hand so you can actually talk to this person you’re trying to charm, you might still be breathing afterwards. But it’s definitely social suicide.