Dustings #105*
/I was asked recently if I could think of a trick that could be used to present someone with a new iPhone. The person was looking for some kind of immersive, experiential trick, and no… I didn’t have any good ideas for him.
But here’s a decent idea for a sort of dumb way to do it.
At some point when they’re not in the room, turn off their current phone. And dump a little water on the table where their phone was.
When they get back in the room, act upset. You spilled water on their phone, and it won’t turn on anymore. Act like you want to urgently address the situation and place their phone in a bowl and cover it with rice.
A few minutes later you check on the phone to see how it’s doing, and you pull from the bowl a brand-new iPhone shrink-wrapped in its box. “Wow, that works really well,” you say.
How do you do it? I don’t know. I’d probably just switch bowls if you had a large rice bag, you could probably switch them under the bag itself. Maybe you could create a mirror jar of sorts and put the old phone in one side and the new phone on the other. Or some sort of change bag, so you’re dumping the rice in a bag? I don’t know. I don’t know that you have to waste a great method on this, since you’re going to have to eventually give them back their old phone to transfer onto the new phone. So it will be a pretty short-lived moment of magical weirdness regardless.
Here was the other “moral” to the Old/New Coin story from earlier this week. This lesson comes from the fact that the initial reactions to the effect were similar between the Copper/Silver version and the more elaborate Time Travel/Willow Tree version. But it was the latter performance that seemed to really stick with people in the long run.
Here is what I wrote (and cut out of) Wednesday’s post…
The longer I perform, the more and more I realize that you can’t just rely on the initial reaction to a trick. Magic that’s really affecting to people often doesn’t have a big “pop” at the climax. In fact, it can often mess with them to the point that they just churn it over in their mind and almost forget to give you any reaction at all.
Similarly, oftentimes, a “wow” or a “no way” at the climax is just a courtesy reaction. It’s like a laugh to a joke. Sure, sometimes a laugh is genuine. But sometimes people will laugh just as an acknowledgement that someone said a joke, and now it’s thankfully over.
I’m not saying I ignore the spectator’s immediate reaction, but I’ve definitely tried to become more and more attuned to their reaction in the long-term. I’ve mentioned in the past that when I track my performances, I keep track of a trick’s memorability. That is, how long after the trick was performed did someone still mention it to me. I also keep track of a trick’s initial reaction. And what I’ve learned is there’s almost no relationship between that initial reaction, and how memorable the trick is. Sure, if it’s a bad trick it won’t have much of an initial reaction OR be memorable. But there are good tricks that get really “big” initial reactions, and there are good tricks that get really long-lasting reactions, and they’re not necessarily the same. I try to be cognizant of both, so I have a repertoire that gives people a variety of experiences.
Last month I wrote about my difficulty getting AI to write a poem that would work as “influence” for Joshua Quinn’s trick from the Christmas party.
Les T. wrote one that works and almost makes sense.
Here’s how you could use it.
You bring out a folded piece of paper.
Unfold the paper and read the poem (or have them read it). Ask them to really try and absorb the words and the meaning of the poem. Re-fold the paper.
Switch over to the word list on your phone and have them name a number and note the random object at that number.
“What’s the object? A paper plane? Impossible to predict that,” you say as you look down at your hands where the poem has been refolded into a paper plane.
You then explain the “influence” that went into the effect (as per Joshua’s original).
You would have to have the paper pre-folded with the paper airplane creases, so you could refold it casually as if you’re just putting it away.
By the way, if you position the influence words carefully, you could have it so those are the only words that show at one point during the unfolding process. (Sort of like the picture below, but in the picture, the poem hadn’t been written on the page with this idea in mind.)
Then you can bring them back to this moment. “You might not remember earlier, but I paused when unfolding this poem and it looked like this. For a few moments there were only five words you could see.” And so on…
UPDATE
Here are some more details from Les regarding the specifics he uses with this trick…
A couple refinements that I think tighten this up a bit.
BTW, The title of the poem is a play on the influence theme that can be drawn attention to in the reveal, other than just turbulence experienced on a flight.
My hook is that I used to love Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey on SNL, and believe he was the most underrated poet of his time. He continues to be an inspiration…
“I recently started writing poems myself.” Offer to have them read my latest creation and give honest feedback.
They react unimpressed, and confused which sets me up to explain my process.
“I have a list of random things on my phone. I am always adding more ideas to the list In order to challenge my creativity.”
Show list on phone briefly, and draw attention to the total number of items.
I roll a die in order to generate a 2 digit number, and whatever I end up with I have to write a poem about in under 2 minutes.
Could use mental die, or just have them roll an imaginary die and say the digit after each roll. I offer to let them choose which number goes where in order to make the 2 digit number.
Proceed with DFB, and challenge them to make a poem.
They struggle, or succeed, then tell them you haven’t been totally honest, and reveal a la Keyser Söze.
Few points on the paper plane.
The “nose” of the plane is at the bottom of the page rather than the top which is a little more subtle. It also allows the key words which were initially in view upon unfolding, to appear on the wing of the plane at the end so you can bring it full circle.
I should also note that instead of the grammatically incorrect “pickup,” you could just have it say “pick up.” You lose the “influence” of it being just the last word in each line, but you still have the influence that they saw these words isolated at some point earlier when you were unfolding.