Dustings #85

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Pete McCabe, sent along this idea which I like quite a bit…

A student of mine had a “nano beauty spray device” in class. It’s a plastic cylinder maybe 5 inches long. Rechargable. Put water in it and turn it on, and it emits a tiny cloud of fine vapor.

I think this has great potential as an Imp. You can spray it in someone's face very safely (that’s pretty much what it’s made for), before they read someone’s mind. I’ll bet you can put a drop of flavoring that would create an interesting smell. You can mist the deck before covering it with a bowl in your haunted deck routine. Runs hands off, which is a plus.

And it just looks cool.

About ten bucks at amazon.

I would definitely add some sort of essential oil scent to it. The best place for these sorts of things is the Demeter Fragrance Library. They have oils in every scent from Crayon to Graham Cracker to Funeral Home to Puppy’s Breath. You can get a scent that evokes childhood to bring someone back to that time in their life. Or you can just get some exotic scent that supposedly unlocks certain abilities in your spectator.

With the oils in it, I wouldn’t spray them directly in anyone’s face. But you can safely spray them near people to be inhaled.

In The JAMM #6, I had a trick called Faith which involved a spectator removing her ring (ideally a priceless family heirloom), tying that ring to the ribbon at the end of a helium balloon, and then letting the balloon go into the sky. The spectator themselves does all those things. They tie the ring to the ribbon on the balloon and they let the balloon go. They can see their ring go off into the sky. The ring then reappears in a locked box or wherever you’ve set it up to reappear. It’s the same ring. No duplicate rings are used.

It’s one of the strongest tricks you can do. The set-up to do this trick is extensive, so I don’t know how many people have ever actually performed it. I would guess probably about 15 or so, because everyone who does try it, seems to write me afterwards to tell me how it went because it’s such an intense trick for people.

A guy called, The Falcon, wrote in to suggest doing a similar effect using the ISO app and the Serial AR feature. In his words…

Replace the ring with a bill. Tie the bill to the end of the string/ribbon and take the photo with serial ar. Then let the balloon legitimately fly away.

Obvious cons are that you would lose a bill every time and not as impactful as using someone’s cherished ring. But it’s 100% impromptu and the conclusion could be instant and limitless.—The Falcon

Yeah, it’s not going to have the same intensity of convincing someone to let go of a ring they treasure that’s tied to a helium balloon, but it would still be a pretty strong trick and the set-up is super easy. So if you’re willing to lose $20 or whatever as it flies away, this is a much simpler alternative. You could do it with a $1, I guess, but then it’s really low stakes.

This…

Has got to be fake, right? I mean it’s just a reworking of this, right?

@justinflom

The blonde’s reaction tho 😲😯😏

♬ original sound - JustinFlom

I’ve never understood the physics of what this trick/prank is supposed to suggest. I mean, if a seat fell down the pole that was supporting it, that pole wouldn’t suddenly JAM STRAIGHT UP YOUR ASSHOLE, you know? Like, I guess if you had a chronically gaping butthole, and your pants were made of wrapping paper, and you centered your anus directly over the pole, then sat down on the seat with all your weight on the surrounding seat and none of it on the pole, then, in that situation, the pole could penetrate through your brittle pants and disappear into the dark void of your rectum. But that seems unlikely. We, as humans, are just so desperate to see some unintended anal violation that we buy into this, despite the impossibility.

This has been: Andy takes an unneccesarily critical look at something stupid.

Next week: You can’t even really fit big snakes in Pringles cans. And if you did, they wouldn’t jump out like that.