Monday Mailbag #70
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In today's post [WWJD If Someone Googled the Secret to a Trick I Had Performed?}, you provide more (false) info to the spectator about what you're doing, as they teach you their method. In a normal interaction of course, they would continue to ask questions based on the information you provided them. For instance, for the below example: "What do you mean"; "where is the money going"; "how much have you lost" etc. How would you continue the interaction?
Quote for context:
"You know the best part about doing it this way? You could do this all night. The way I was doing it is really a once a week thing. Also, you don’t lose any money this way.” [Implication: The way I was doing it… the money really disappears or something? And you can only do it once a week? Huh?']—RK
Well my goal is to make talking about methods as unsatisfying as possible. So I would give them bland answers.
“Where is the money going?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How much have you lost?”
“Eh, a few bucks. As I said, it’s not something you can do all that often. For the first few months of practicing, the coin never went anywhere, so it wasn’t an issue.”
You don’t want interesting answers because you don’t want to reward them for harping on the method.
The idea here is not to imply, “You found the secret to a trick on google. But what I did for you was real magic.”
My implication is simply that they found a method via google that relied on sleight of hand or gimmicks. I’m happy to talk about those sorts of methods, but what I was using in this circumstance was something a little more arcane.
If they were to press me on what exactly I was doing I’d say “Do you know Ohm’s law?” Or something else they don’t understand. “Read up on that, and that will give you the general idea.”
If they say, “You weren’t doing anything crazy. You were just using that sleight-of-hand method that I learned.”
Then I’d say, “Okay. That doesn’t bother me if you think that. I’d prefer you think that, actually.”
Social magic is about cultivating an audience of people who enjoy seeing something that feels unexplainable. When you find someone who doesn’t, just don’t perform for them in the future. It’s that simple.
I saw Derren Brown’s very fine ‘Showman’ performance at Liverpool on Friday night and I couldn’t help notice the similarities between one of his effects and your effect 'In Search of Lost Time', which I love and have used on friends to great success. I was wondering if you’d had any direct or indirect involvement in Derren’s show? —TH
There was some minor direct involvement early on in the writing of that show. But I don’t think the thing I was involved with ever went anywhere.
Indirectly, Derren would have been reading the book with In Search of Lost Time in it right around the time he was writing Showman. So it’s certainly possible there was some incidental influence. But I don’t really know the trick you’re talking about. So it’s hard to say for sure.
By the way, the thing I was working on for Derren (which is more a technique than a trick) will be found in the next book.
[Regarding] this: https://www.thejerx.com/blog/2022/6/14/the-artist-distracted-in-the-wild ?
Yes, distracted artist at his best. However, now I’m expecting a complete flood of fake videos from all of those Julius Dein-ish account where a fake hidden camera discovers something incredible made by a random bad dressed up magician.
Hope not. At least for my stomach. —FDM
The power of that video is that it doesn’t come from the magician’s account, and we don’t even really see who is performing the effect. Yes, it’s true that you’ll probably see some corny instagram/tiktok magician attempt to capitalize on this idea. It will be difficult though, because the strength of this idea is found in the premise that this is something that wasn’t meant to be captured and broadcast in any way. While it’s possible to fake that, it will be hard to do so in a way that brings the magician any notoriety. So the social-media magicians are likely to avoid it.