Believe It Or Not I Have Thoughts On the Hot Rod: Part One

The first trick I ever saw at a magic shop when I was a kid was the hot rod. The owner showed me a little plastic stick with 6 different colored jewels on each side and he asked me to name a number between 1 and 6.

I thought a while. What should I say? I bet everyone just says one. Because it’s the first number. So obvious. Or maybe six because it’s the last thing he said. I’ll really mess him up and go for something he’d never expect.

“Three,” I said, and gave him a “bet you’re fucked now” devilish grin.

“Okay, three,” he said and counted to the third gem, a red-ish thing. “So we’ll use the ruby.” Even my barely-pubescent brain knew there was no chance that was a “ruby.”

He gave the stick a jolt and all the gems on both friggin’ sides turned to the stone I selected!

The Hot Rod is a joke of a trick, with the worst force in the history of magic. “What number did you choose? Six? Okay, so we spell S-I-X.” There are certain times you can maybe get away with spelling instead of counting, but not when you’ve asked for a number from 1-6, and you have a row of six objects.

But I’ve always had a soft spot for the trick. Maybe because it was the first one I saw at a magic shop. Maybe because it was the first trick I saw in real life that wasn’t a card trick or a coin trick.

I recently picked a Hot Rod back up for the first time in 20 years and started playing around with it.

Now, I’m not going to say it’s a good trick. Because it’s not. But there’s something fun about it, and it’s kind of “pretty,” even if it’s just cheap plastic jewels. It’s pretty in a way most close-up tricks aren’t. It’s great for kids. And not bad for adults that like a little visual treat. And it’s fun to mess around with.

I don’t really have anything to add to this presentationally. I don’t yet have a rationale for this resin stick with jewels on it. But I have come up with some ideas that have made this a much greater fooler for the people I’ve shown it to. And I’m going to share three of those ideas with you on the site. Two today and one next week.

Intro

Typically, people will introduce the Hot Rod by saying something like, “This little plastic rod has six colored jewels on this side. And six on the other side as well.”

There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s pretty straightforward. But I believe you can cement the condition of the “rod” in their head better by saying this.

“This plastic stick has six colored jewels on this side: purple, green, blue, red, white, and yellow. And they’re in the same order on the other side: purple, green, blue, red, white, and yellow.”

Here’s why I think this works well. Often when people watch a magician, they are more than ready to disbelieve whatever the magician says.

If I say, “This stick has different colored jewels on each side.” Then their inclination is to disbelieve that.

So instead, I’m saying, “The jewels on this side are in the same order as the jewels on the other side.” Now, whether they believe that or don’t believe that, they’re still reinforcing in their head that there are different colored jewels on each side. The suspicious ones are thinking, “Ah, I bet they’re in a different order.” Because that’s what I dangled in front of them. But that won’t get them any closer to figuring out the trick. In fact, considering the order they’re in only fools them more.

This is a technique I’ve been considering in other effects as well. One where I use their own suspicion to cement in a condition I want them to believe. In this instance, the condition that there are different colored jewels on each side.

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Choices - The Either Side Ploy

If you do what I do and leave them with the Hot Rod at the end to look at (or even keep, in rare circumstances) then you have to do it where you transform it from different jewels on each side, to all the same jewel on each side. And then you “pause the transformation” halfway, so it’s different jewels on one side and all the same on the other, and then hand it out.

This is good because you’ve supposedly “magically” put it in a state that just so happens to be examinable. But if they hold onto it too long, or think about it too much, it’s not difficult to conceive that maybe you showed them the same side twice. In that case, the power of the routine can only rely on how free and fair their selection seemed. It’s one thing if you showed them the same side twice, but since it still ended up the color they chose, that’s still a decent mystery.

As in all the forces I look at, my goal is to slow things down and give them a greater sense of choice.

So while a number is being determined, I put the hot rod in my fist like this. (Assume the spectator is opposite me.)

Then I explain that we’re going to count along to the number they chose, and whatever stone is there will be the one we use.

Before we do, I give them a final choice. “Do you want to start counting from the left side or the right side?” And I make it clear so they don’t think I’m trying to be sneaky. “From your left or your right, I mean.”

For the sake of explanation, let’s assume they chose the number three and the force stone is the blue stone and the hot rod is in my hand like so (blue stone third from the left)…

If they say they want to start counting from the left side, I do the most natural thing in the world and open my hand so we can count the stones. The blue stone is now third from their left.

If they say they want to start counting from the right side, I point to the thumb side of my fist, to confirm we’re talking about their right, and then I pull out the Hot Rod revealing stone by stone and showing that the third from their right is the blue stone.

Both of these actions come off as 100% innocent and don’t require you to do anything shady. It’s just that one final moment of free choice before the ending. And you can make that clear, “If we had counted from the left instead, we would have ended up on _____.”

Yeah, but Andy, why bother polishing this turd? As you said, it has the worst force in the history of magic. Who cares about giving them the choice of which side to start from if you still have to spell to four out of the six numbers?

Oh, sweet child, don’t worry. I fixed the force. Free choice of 1-6, no spelling, and nothing required other than a standard Hot Rod.

I’ll write that up in next Tuesday’s post. (If you want to email me with a guess at how this might be accomplished, I’d be interested in hearing your ideas.)