Dustings #91
/I was performing my handling of Socks by Michel Huot for a friend the other day. She loved it.
Then later on, she noticed there was a playing card reveal on the bottom of the socks.
I’d gone to the trouble of establishing the sock cards as cards from a children’s game, so when my friend noticed the playing card reveal on the bottom of the socks she said, “Oh, those are for a trick?”
So she had really enjoyed the trick when I showed it to her—and she knew she had seen a trick, obviously. But when she saw a playing card on the bottom and realized these were “prop socks” the charm of it all vanished.
Magic manufacturers… I beg of you… you don’t have to cram every fucking dumb idea you have into your props. “We can put a playing card reveal on the bottom of the socks!” Does this seem like a smart idea, given that the whole purpose of the trick was to take a card trick/revelation out of the realm of playing cards? Sure, you can stamp a playing card reveal on the back of any prop, if you want, but it detracts more than it adds. For the extra revelation, you’re paying the price of highlighting the fact these are special magic prop socks.
Because here’s the thing, the socks in this trick should—in the “story” of the trick—just be the socks you put on that morning. Or they should be socks that have just now magically appeared on your feet. In the story of the trick, these shouldn’t be special magic trick socks that you bought to show you could know where they would stop dealing cards because that’s a shitty story.
While I’m writing here specifically about this trick Socks, the same logic goes for all unnecessary markings, logos, reveals or whatever that highlight something is a magic prop and not a real world item.
Hey, speaking of not cramming every dumb idea you have into something, can we stop saying things like, “And the trick comes with a three-hour tutorial video!” like that’s a good thing?
I understand that there’s value in the content, and that it’s done with the best of intentions of being “thorough,” but part of what I’m paying for when I buy your trick is your experience from performing it. I want you to tell me the most powerful version of the trick based on your history showing this to a lot of people. I’m not interested in a brainstorming session. I want to get the polished gem. I don’t want to have to mine for it myself.
When I buy a box of cake mix, it tells me how to make the cake on the back of the box. It doesn’t squeeze 100 other recipes in 2-point font on the back.
Obviously, a utility gimmick with a lot of different uses might have an extended tutorial. But frequently you’ll have a trick that really only just has one or two primary uses, and they build out the tutorial with countless variations for seemingly no reason.
What do you care, Andy? Why are you complaining about getting more content?
Because I have a fucking life to lead. Loved ones to see. Friends to spend time with. A three-hour download that could have been covered in 8 minutes is not a gift to me. Having to sift through your brainfarts to find something worthwhile is not a fun use of my time.
And here’s the other thing, if this is really a trick you’ve used for the past 10 years, I would expect your instruction to be more focused and more concentrated on the strongest use for the trick that you’ve found during your time performing it.
Similarly, if I was seeking advice from a hitting coach in baseball, I would expect him to have an idea of the best way to swing the bat, and maybe offer a couple modifications. But I wouldn’t expect him to tell me everything I could do with a bat. “Well, you can swing horizontally, or you can swing down on the ball, or you can hold the bat at both ends and cross-check the ball, or you can poke the ball with the tip of the bat like a pool cue. or you can put it between your legs….”
Maybe I’m alone here. Maybe everyone else loves the long downloads. But I don’t think so. There has to be others who would appreciate your condensed wisdom on the trick. “Here’s how it works. And here’s the most powerful use I’ve found for it.” Make that available its own tutorial. And then if you want to include all the other stuff for people to wade through if they choose to, they can download the exhaustive tutorial.
Some news from Marc Kerstein about some upcoming functionality changes with the Jerx App…
Default Launch Mode
Because the Jerx iPhone app is a collection of different tools and features, you’ll now be able to go in and set it to open to a particular function. Obviously, if need be, you can swipe out of that function to get to the main menu. But if you have a feature you use primarily, or you know you’ll need a specific tool for an upcoming performance, you can set it to open right to it.
Fake Home Screen
Relatedly, you can now set a fake home screen from which to launch effects. For those of you who want that extra layer of deception.
Pseudo Chatbot API
From Marc:
What I’ve done here is to make the chatbot look for $clipboard$ in the text, and it’ll replace that with whatever is on your clipboard.
That way, you can easily swap out a name, or even the entire response from the chatbot by copying something from your Notes app.
Alternatively, other magic apps might put something on your clipboard, which the Jerx app can then read and put in to the response.
Thanks to Marc for working on this. He’s the best app developer since the guy who made the beer drinking app.
Hey, let’s see if we can get Marc to kill himself or someone else. The beer drinking app used to make that app developer $20,000 a day.
Do you know how much Marc has made from Wikitest? $250.