Mailbag #109 — Splooge, Xeno, and My "Legacy"
/Will you ever do another Splooge week? Or even a book of non-magic content? —OW
Possibly to both. I think I have a book’s worth of non-magic content. A lot of it related to happiness, productivity, leading a full life. (And then other stuff like “How to Hear More Farts”) I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with it all or what the interest is in it. But it will be mentioned here or in the newsletter if anything ever happens with it.
I seem to use xeno quite frequently. Quick question.
How do you get them to go to the url and under what pretext?
"I found this web page blablabla?"
Or do you send it to them by message or what?
Maybe its just me but it doesnt feel natural to me to show them a QR of the web on my phone (one of the xeno options) to send them to the web.
Specially when its one of the websites created by myself. (Long weird urls) —JFC
Xeno is one of the most underrated magic apps out there. They go to a website on their phone, look at anything on the website, and you can tell them what they’re looking at. It’s just so direct and clean. And there’s no limit to the theme of the website and therefore the premise of the effect.
While there are some sites set up for Xeno that use a normal, easy to pass along URL with just a verbal prompt, e.g., “Go to star sign dot me.” The custom lists that users create have URLs that are a little funky. Not questionably funky. Like they’re not URLs that are like:
go0gel.com
But they look like this tinyhost.pw/list/87weR4tC80.
Which is not the sort of link you’re just going to casually mention to someone. “So, I was at my favorite site the other day. Do you ever go to this site? Tinyhost dot pee doubleyou slash list slash eight seven lower-case doubleyou ee upper-case are the number four lower-case tee uppercase see eight zero?”
So how to get people to these sites?
Marc Kerstein provides an easy option where you show someone a QR code on your phone, and they can scan that, and it takes them to the site. But honestly, I’ve never shown someone a QR code on my phone to take them to a site in real life, so I wouldn’t do it for a trick either.
Here are the ways I do it:
1. Text them the link. It will just look something like this.
2. If you’re performing remotely, email them the link.
3. If you want to have a URL you can say to them, go to tinyurl.com to shorten the link with a custom alias. For example, I could say to you, “Go to tiny URL dot com slash bandly.” And that takes you to a Xeno site about rock bands.
4. If there’s a trick you’re going to be using regularly and you want a really easy URL to direct them to, just buy one and redirect it to the Xeno site. This is cheap and easy. For example, I just bought
JoshuaJaysDickSmells.lol
for two dollars.
If they look at the URL again, it will be the more complicated Xeno URL, but that’s okay. There’s nothing magic-tricky about the Xeno URL. It’s just a complicated one. In the rare instance where they might look at the URL and wonder why it doesn’t say what they originally typed in, you just say, “Oh, I guess they forward it to that site? I don’t know.” It’s not your website. You don’t have to answer for it.
I emailed Marc and he mentioned that Xeno is on his agenda for an update. One that would add new features and also make it easier to create Xeno sites. In that update, he may also add the functionality to connect the Xeno site to your custom URL, so it wouldn’t just forward it along, but it would be at that URL itself.
As of now, there are a ton of user created Xeno sites. I would like to encourage the practice of users buying cheap domains for the best ones as well to share among other Xeno users (there’s a facebook page). So you create a page that lists, for example, a wide range of emotions. Then you buy emotionalbreakdown.info for 3 bucks and forward it to the Xeno site. (But turn off “autorenew” when you buy the domain, so you’re not on the hook for it in future years when the price goes up to $25 or $40 or whatever).
I wonder how much you pay attention to these things:
Sites that pop up that are clearly inspired by you. Sometimes just rewriting things you’ve already written, like a Jerx cover band.
Premises you’ve championed coming up in other performers work.
Your style of writing up effects showing up in others’ releases.
How terms like “social magic” and “casual magic” are being used in ad copy much more frequently.
[…]
Do you ever think about how far your ideas have spread, or your legacy in magic? —MMB
I give zero thought to it. If I cared about a “legacy” in magic, I wouldn’t write under a pseudonym.
I’m happy some people find value in the approach I’ve written about here. But I also like that it’s not mainstream. If anything, I wish these ideas were spread less.
Much of what I write about here is stupid. And a lot of it is just general magic talk. However, some of these concepts I’ve written up I’ve been using to produce extraordinarily mystifying, or intense moments of magic with people.
Unfortunately, the more common these techniques/premises become, the less potent they will be.
So it’s a combination of wanting to get the ideas out to the people who will use them, but also not wanting these ideas to get fucked-out to the point where they’re no longer useful.
It’s like I’ve found this hidden tree deep in the woods that grows this unusual fruit. It’s delicious, and more than I could ever eat on my own. So I’m compelled to share the location with others. But if I share it with people, and they share it with more, and crowds flock to it, eagerly plucking its fruit, then there will be none for anyone. And the influx of visitors—trampling around the grounds and picking through the limbs—might just kill the tree.
And just selfishly, I don’t want the ideas overused because I want to be able to keep putting them into practice for myself.
So no, I’m not interested in my legacy. I just want to keep the tree bearing fruit and make sure it gets to the people who truly enjoy it.