Until December...

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This is the final post of November. Regular posting will resume, Monday, December 2nd and the next newsletter will be sent to supporters on Sunday, December 1st.

So it’s just a quick break before we pick back up again next week.

A couple more Spex Mix references that have been sent to me since last Thursday’s post:

From PM:

You can add Ben Earl’s Shuffled Ose Control from Less is More to Joe McKay’s list:

Hand the spectator the deck. You’re going to walk them through the Jay Ose false cut, but after the put the top third on the table, they shuffle. Then they cut another group on the table, and shuffle the rest. These go on the table and the deck is assembled, keeping a top stock of however many cards the spectator cut the first time.

From M.K. (and others)

So Sato has a thing called "Mass Destruction Stacking" in his book Secrets of So Sato: https://www.conjuringarchive.com/list/book/930?highlight=45446

One packet is never disturbed and becomes the bottom of the deck.

Carefree Philosophy in Action.

New Wave is a new version of B’wave where the card the spectator is thinking of is the one turned over in a packet of four in your wallet. The other cards are shown to be blank and the chosen card has a different back.

The improvement here is that it can be done with a value freely named by the spectator.

Previously, I would ask myself things like, “Is this a good trick?” “Will it fool people?” “Can I come up with a good presentation for it?”

Now I ask myself, “Am I going to carry around an extra fat fucking wallet just for the possibility I might want to show someone this trick?”

The answer is no.

The trick may be good. It might make sense in a walkaround magic situation where you’re carrying props for a specific “set” of magic. But for the amateur magician, I don’t think it’s great.

It’s not a bad trick (that I can tell). It’s just an anti-Carefree trick. You’re so pocket-committed to the trick that it would be pretty much the one trick you would be showing people whenever you were carrying it.

Not only that, but it’s a trick you can get 80% close to with well-structured equivoque and other linguistic deceptions. Enough so that a laymen would unlikely be able to tell the difference.

I know this isn’t a consideration for everyone, but I just wanted to mention this as an example of how this philosophy is affecting what I do or don’t choose to invest my time and money in.

This isn’t magic related, but it was a fun, social thing I came up with along with my friend Ruby last week.

She was going through her wallet and finding a bunch of gift cards that she hadn’t used despite having them for years. She was mentioning how it made her feel bad because these were gifts and she was appreciative of them, but she never really thought to use them. I told her I had the same situation. I had gift cards for restaurants and Barnes & Noble and Target and stuff like that all piled up at home and I never remembered to bring them with me, even when I would shop at those places.

In a way, this is a good sign. It means I’m not so desperate for money that a gift card is making some big impact on my life when I get it.

But, at the same time, I shouldn’t let them go to waste. Gift cards might not be the most thoughtful gift in existence, but I’m still pretty appreciative of one when I get it.

Then I had an idea. Ruby and I would get our friends together for an event: A Gift-Card Crawl.

We gathered a few friends together, who also had their own gift cards to use and we met up in the morning and planned out our day. We went from place to place: eating, shopping, going to the movies. It was an all-day thing. It was fun just to be hanging out with friends all day, but also to have this “mission” of going through our cards.

When we used a card we would take a picture of the person whose gift card it was, posing with what they bought, and they’d send it to the person to who gave them the card. “Just bought a burger and fries from Five Guys with the gift card you gave me last Christmas. It was SO good 😋 Love you!” That’s part of the gift-card crawl. Saying thank you. We heard back from a number of people who seemed touched they were remembered.

Maybe it sounds stupid, but it was fun. If you have a group of friends who like getting out and doing stuff, then a Gift-Card Crawl might just be the sort of goofball shit your friends would like to. And you can stop at a bar between stops if you feel the need to amp it up.

Okay, boys and girls. See you in December!