Mailbag: Destiny Deal
/Do you have any thoughts or ideas for Craig Petty’s Destiny Deal?
I’m not a fan of the handling 100% but I like that the specky gets to give them a real shuffle.
I also do a lot of magic with your Peek Backstage concept so that drew me to this trick.
The responses so far have been fine but not really super strong. Any thoughts or ideas for this one? —DT
I like the aspect of the trick that you noted, that there’s a genuine shuffle during the effect. I also like that there’s a genuinely free choice of card.
I don’t really love the handling either. I think taking the card from them and drawing their attention back to the deck isn’t a great moment when ALL they care about is if that card is their card.
On his Youtube, Craig showed a much better handling where the instruction card is held face-up the whole time.
He still suggests drawing their attention back to the deck after the card at their position has been added to your instruction card, but I’m not quite sure why. It’s unnecessary. The gimmicked card does a discrepant, but still fooling, switch for you. Drawing their attention away from the only thing they care about in that moment, is the last thing you want to do.
It would be like doing the Nest of Boxes and when you get to the last one you say, "Okay, give me that. Now double-check and make sure you didn't miss anything. Your ring isn't in any of those other boxes, correct?" And then you secretly load the ring when they turn away to check the other boxes. You wouldn’t do that, of course because it’s a terrible idea.
So I recommend Craig’s face-up handling, it’s a lot better than the version in the trailer. Take the card from them. Drop it on the instruction card. Wait a beat while you say something. Then turn them over.
Yes, it’s discrepant, but I’ve found people to be almost incapable of following along with what the orientation of things should be if they are in multiple orientations, and you then turn them over.
So the handling isn’t really an issue for me.
I do have issues with the presentation, however.
In DC’s email he says he likes to do tricks with “my” Peek Backstage concept.
That style of presentation—which I originally talked about here—is certainly something other people played around before me. I was just the person to codify it and name it.
The problem with Destiny Deal is that it doesn’t really have the feel of what I’m going for with a Peek Backstage.
To understand this, remember the posts I didn’t on Presentation vs. Context.
To quickly summarize-
Presentation: Is a motif or subject matter that is laid over a trick.
Context: Is a situation into which a trick is placed.
If I want to do a trick with a ghost presentation, I could use this pen and tell you a story about Happy the Ghost and have the pen move without anyone touching it. That’s a trick with a ghost presentation.
If I wanted to do a trick with a ghost context, I could take you to a run-down “haunted” motel near me and show you the room where this guy was killing prostitutes for over a decade. They say the room is haunted by their spirits. I make a little Ouija board by drawing the alphabet in a circle on a piece of paper and then resting the pen on top of a glass in the middle of the letters. As we call on the spirits, the pen would move by itself and eventually topple off the glass.
It’s the same trick, with the same theme, but in one case we’re just using the theme to dress-up the trick, and in the other we’re pulling the trick into the theme.
Destiny Deal is a Peek Backstage presentation. It’s the way you would do Peek Backstage if you were table-hopping or working at a wedding. Which makes sense because these are the environments Craig normally performs in.
But since I don’t perform professionally, I want my peeks backstage to feel legitimate. I want them to think they’re actually getting some insider information.
My first issue with this is that the instructions are on a playing card. Nobody thinks that’s how trick instructions come.
Simon Aronson had a great trick called Side-Swiped. That involved instructions on a card as well. With Side-Swiped though, the instructions become the spectator’s selected card. So even if they don’t buy this card as being legitimate at the start, by the end it makes sense that these instructions are on a card because they would have to be for the premise of the trick.
My issue with Destiny Deal is that the instructions are on a card only for the methodology.
Do you see what I mean?
You’re introducing something unusual, and something that doesn’t make much sense (magic instructions on a playing card) and then nothing happens—from the spectator’s perspective— that necessitates the instructions being on the card.
Now, you could say to yoru audience, “Every now and then, Bicycle includes the instructions for a card trick in with their decks. But they only sell these in certain magic shops or at magician’s conventions.”
Good! Now we’re back with something that’s justified and interesting. In fact, I’d say that’s very interesting. Special cards that Bicycle puts in special decks only to be sold in special places? Great.
Perhaps it can even come as a surprise to you. Start opening a deck before anyone’s paying much attention. Add the special card to the deck as you open it up. “Oh shit. This is cool.” Explain to them that these “trick instruction” cards only come in decks randomly that you get from special locations. “They’re in every 50 decks. Or 100 decks. Something like that.”
So we’ve justified the prop, and there’s a handling I’m happy with. So what’s the problem?
Unfortunately, we’re back in Peek Backstage presentation land… because these aren’t instructions for a trick…
They’re just the steps you would see if you were watching along with the trick. There’s no secret or insight on this card. There’s no peek behind the curtains, because this is literally exactly what they’re seeing in front of the curtain.
Here’s a page of fake instructions for a trick from an older book of mine…
In that trick you’re walking through the steps of a trick with someone as you “learn” it. The trick is supposed to make a card come to the top of the deck. But when you perform it, the card ends up going to the spectator’s pocket. (Because you accidentally turned two pages instead of one as you went through the instructions, causing you to accidentally perform Card to Pocket, rather than Card to Top of Deck.)
Notice there are a bunch of fake-o techniques mentioned in the instructions. The techniques listed are what make them instructions. Rather than just a description of what we can see happen.
It’s a simple fix. Penguin just needs to make a new instruction card. I’ll help you design it. (And yes, you can brand it as a Jerx/Petty production. You’re welcome.)
Imagine you’re going through the card, reading off the instructions. And the instruction that happens after you take the card from them is something like, “Misdirect their attention away from the card while you perform an MB Twist of 8 degrees.”
Now you drop their card on the instructions and hold out your palm to them innocently.
“I’m not going to bother misdirecting you away from this. That would be silly because you’ve seen the instructions. So the MB Twist looks like this….” You slowly turn your palm over and back. “And if that worked, this should be your card.” Turn the cards over and reveal their card.
Now instead of actually misdirecting them at that moment in the routine, you’re being so generous by not doing so.
To be fair, I think as the trick stands now, it’s perfectly fine for the situations Craig (and many magicians) perform in. It’s a professional performance, so everything is going to likely come off as “presentation” anyway. I’m trying to add elements of verisimilitude and mystery because those things play very well in casual, amateur performances where people don’t really know what could be real or not.
While I’m redesigning your prop Craig and Penguin…
Get rid of the heading “Steps to Perform an Amazing Card Trick.” I realize the point of this is so people understand what they’re looking at immediately from the other side of a restaurant table, but it makes the card look extra fakey. It should say something like. “Mystery Card Trick #14.” This implies there is a series of these things that exists in some manner in the real world. And not that this is just a prop for this particular trick.
I don’t think there’s any reason for the card to have a red back. At least not with the face-up version Craig demonstrates in his Youtube video. In fact, a red back only serves to confuse people of which card they’re looking at which moment. Make the back of the card an ad for the book this trick was supposedly taken from. “If you like this trick, you can buy the full collection…,” blah, blah, blah. Or make it say, like, “Mystery Card Trick Series. Collect all 52 card trick instructions in select decks of playing cards…,” blah, blah, blah, again. This makes it a card you can just carry with you and perform with any poker-sized borrowed deck.