Mailbag #99
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[I received an email from a supporter describing his first time performing an all-day effect. The effect had a time-travel presentation and involved driving around to various spots throughout the day and opening a series of numbered envelopes, supposedly sent from his future self. At the end of the email he wrote…]
This is one of my first long immersive tricks I have tried. I have to say, the techniques and misdirection you have in the arc of a [day-long] story is HUGE, it feels like child’s play. It’s amazing. And you have a ton of fun during the day. The hard part must be getting interesting stories to play out.
How often do you do things like this? I can imagine it loses magic if you do it too often. But I can see the strength of it.—JFC
When it comes to a magic trick where they are devoting a significant portion of their day to experience it, that’s the sort of thing I would probably only perform for someone once a year or so. To ask for that much time from someone, you have to be showing them something really special. And if you start rattling off something like that once every few weeks, that suggests that it’s not all that special.
More frequently, I’ll perform tricks that last a long time, but really only a small portion of that time is devoted to the trick itself. So, I may set something up with them in the afternoon, and it only pays off later that night. It may take 6 hours for the trick to come to fruition, but only 10 minutes of their time is focused on the trick itself. I like this structure a lot because you get the benefits of a trick that takes time to unfold, but you’re not demanding they pay attention to a magic trick for hours and hours. These types of tricks I’m fine with performing a few times a year for people.
As far as a “normal” length trick (normal for me is 5-20 minutes), that’s the sort of thing I’ll show someone one a month or so.
I try not to deny people who ask to see something more frequently, but at the same time, it’s hard to give them powerful, distinct memories of each effect if they’re seeing something from you every couple of days.
In order to try and keep the magical encounters feeling rare and special, if someone is asking to see something a little too frequently, I put them off by laying the groundwork for the next trick I’m going to show them. So if they’re like, “Show me something else,” and I think we’re not on a good pace, then I’ll say something like, “Hmm… let me think. There’s nothing else I’ve been playing around with recently but…
My friend, who’s a great magician, is sending me something in the mail soon.
I’m going to a swap-meet next week that’s devoted to unusual objects. I should be able to pick up something there that might interest you.
I’m looking into [some unusual topic] and there’s something I want to try regarding that soon. I should be ready to test it out in another week or so.
In a couple of weeks I’m going to this convention where people share arcane knowledge, I bet I’ll learn something there that will be interesting.
You get the idea. I’m setting up something that’s happening in the future, after which, I’ll have something interesting to show them. I’m creating anticipation and setting the stage for something to come.
I saw this updated version of the silver ball routine…
And in trying to approach the presentation in a more jersey way, my first thought was that you could use that old joke about men cumming in socks and how stiff they get to lead into using this cloth to pick up the drink.
But then I was thinking you could use it to move covered drinks around without people knowing. Perhaps something like the poisoner's stand off in the Princess Bride? Any thoughts? —FM
Ha, I don’t know what it means to use this in a “more jersey” way, but I have thoughts on both of your ideas.
I’ll start with your second idea first—using this gimmick to secretly move the glass. I don’t own the gimmick, so I can’t comment directly on it. But knowing the general idea behind these types of gimmicks, I find it unlikely that you could do this quickly and quietly, which is what you’d need to do for this to be effective. So I think it might be off the table.
The problem with your first idea is that it’s trying to be a “funny” premise, but it’s too far away from what actually happens in the effect. Trying to somehow correlate cum stiffened socks with a floating wine glass is too much of a stretch.
A funny premise needs to be directly related to what happens, otherwise it’s detrimental to the effect. It feels like you’re apologizing for this thing you’re showing them by slapping on a tangentially-at-best related premise.
It may feel too earnest to you to just levitate someone’s champagne glass without coming up with a “bit” to attach to it, but any comedy in that situation will likely take away from the effect. If you were really showing them something genuinely interesting, would you need to force a joke onto it? Probably not.
That’s not to say I never do “jokey” material, but I try to only do so when the humor is engrained in the effect and not laid on top of the effect.