"If people have even a little understanding, it is better to move them than to amaze them." - Andres Segovia

Special moments aren’t made in the what, they’re made in the how. When it comes to magic, I frequently hear fellow practitioners claiming that people see a deck of cards come out, and a person will say “Oh, I’ve seen that one before.” A clamoring of agreement comes from the room. “Yeah, hate it when that happens.” etc. Card-workers also dislike that spectators don’t remember the specific effects that are occurring, and instead link the effects to the general category of “card tricks”.

Here’s my opinion: it’s because, while these various tricks may be wildly different for those of us who have an extraordinary amount of understanding, to those who only have a little understanding, all these card tricks are indeed the same. There’s an ounce of truth when the spectators announce “Oh, I’ve seen that before.” because they essentially have seen the same exact plot before. Whether their card is found in your wallet, between two others, or from a face-up/face-down shuffle, it’s all generally the same effect.

I was reading JAMM #08, by The Jerx, today, and was again reminded of this notion when he spoke about a modern dance metaphor of watching a magic effect. For those who understand modern dance or perhaps perform it themselves, they will be able to watch two seemingly similar performances and find a wide range of differences, all the different dance moves, etc. For an outsider to that circle of knowledge, it’s all modern dance.

To take another idea away from Magic Live 2017, Josh Jay shared the results of a study which examined various magic plots, and generally, card effects were the least memorable to the average audience. However, once the card effect distinctly morphed into a completely new plot (such as card through window, or Cyril’s fantastic Card Into Aquarium), then recall of that event shot through the roof. This is because the plot is now so far removed from whatever card effect your audience has previously seen.

To some degree, we’re on a constant race of innovation, to make magic more exciting and unique for our audiences. We’re in a wild time, especially with the leaps of technological methodology for magic expanding at an alarming rate. So, let’s show more than card tricks to our audience -- Let’s move them.

-- J.R.

Dear Reader,

We take today to shamelessly plug our own production: The Woman Illusion which premieres in a handful of days at Theater for the New City, an Off-Off-Broadway space on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, NYC. We hope that if you're in town, you'll catch it!

Brief description:
"The Woman Illusion is a playful, wicked gallery of ways to be a woman. Our small cast uses the magic of theatre, and sleight-of-hand art by Magic Castle magician Jackson "Jax" Ridd to unravel spellbinding everyday acts of femininity from the podium to the bedroom. The result is revolution."

Tickets/Info.:
The Woman Illusion Website

Sincerely,

-- J.R. & P.R.

     A week or so ago I had a jarring experience that made me revisit how I present mentalism effects. While I originally intended to write a quick post about how magicians need to be careful in how they use the “psychological reading” pseudo method, the more I thought about it the more complex the topic became, and the more it seemed to connect to the history and evolution of mentalism. So instead of a single post, this will be the first in a short series about mentalism presentations, how they connect with real world tropes, and the dangers of the audience lending a bit too much credence to our presentational frames.

     Before I get into all that, though, let me explain what happened. I was hanging out with an old friend, and since they always enjoyed my magic, and usually requested to see some, I had prepared a few mentalism effects. Just as the topic came up and I began to perform, a few of their friends that I didn’t know started to watch. The final effect (performed one on one of the newcomers) was a billet effect presented as psychological reading of a childhood nickname. For the first letter I had swept my hand across the air telling them one side was A and the other Z, and supposedly reading their eyes to determine the letter. I had named it, and was concentrating on their face when suddenly I let my eyes go blank, started slightly, and abruptly stated the last letter, finally filling in the name. They were duly surprised and intrigued, and began discussing what had happened, and how.

     Now though I have been creating and performing mentalism effects for a while, most are in the context of larger, more formal performances, so only rarely do I get that kind of direct access into the audience's immediate thoughts. It shocked me, then, how fully they bought into the pseudo method, discussing how clear it was for the first letter, and trying to figure out what subtle tell had given away the last letter in such a manner.

     One common refrain when discussing mentalism is that care must be taken to ensure the performer does not, intentionally or otherwise, bolster the audience's belief in the supernatural. While many come to think that presenting these particular effects as feats of psychology, body reading, NLP, and the like elides this issue, I have come to wonder if these pseudo methods are perhaps more dangerous. In later posts I’ll talk about why, in many ways, NLP and its ilk are the modern equivalents of palm reading and fortune telling, why and how magic gravitates towards whatever the current popular tropes are as presentational frames, why that’s both dangerous and necessary, and how carefully you have to matching the believability of the pseudo method to the unbelievability of the effect.

-- Z.Y.

Mea culpa.

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We’ve been out of the office for the past few weeks wandering the streets in Vegas bleary-eyed and intoxicated with professional conferences in Vegas. One of those unexpected conference tables we found were the table games.

In honor of that work we were exploring there, and in the spirit of leading up to publishing an insightful, entertaining interview which we had with RxGamble while we were in town, (transcribing and editing currently) we share with you some resources we’ve found while researching A.P. work. Take a look and if you find something you like, let us/them know. 

Online:
A.P. Street (Website | Twitter) -- "Lee Jensen". A great overview of A.P. Good for the beginner to learn more about this world. 
RxGamble (Website | Twitter) -- "Miss Brown". Fantastic stories from the inside. Extremely adept at finding and exploiting physical zero-days. 
Count Everything (Twitter) -- Anonymous. Bite-sized vegas observations with a current focus on slot hustling. 
Meltz Vegas (Website | Twitter) -- Anonymous. General Vegas updates and insights. 

Print: 
Stanford Wong
Arnold Snyder

Dear Reader -- 

As we recuperate from the festivities at Magic Live 2017, and just Vegas in general, we share with you a list of interesting works you should take a look at:

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Film:
The Fall (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791)
Following (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0154506)
The Sting (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070735)
Catch Me If You Can (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264464)
Vogue / Magic Diner (https://vimeo.com/149129821)

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Literature:
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Murakami
The Monkey’s Paw - W.W. Jacobs

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A draft of a mnemonic for the routine.

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     A couple months back J.R. and I were at our favorite little coffee shop brainstorming ideas and just messing around. As we were talking, an image appeared in my head that I couldn’t shake, and it was of someone sitting at a little corner table, cup of tea steeping next to them, playing solitaire blindfolded. Instantly I knew I wanted to figure out how this could be done. Although a fake blindfold was the obvious answer, since this isn’t, and basically never could be, an effect for a show but instead one for fun (or for any distracted artists out there), I decided it should have an equally fun method. So, having recently learned Mnemonica and being a general puzzle-head, I figured there was must be a way to do it using that, and voila!

     I’m going to be honest, this effect is a lot of work and requires a lot of memorization. And since you are blindfolded you never get to see the reactions, and the viewers are always strangers since it really only stands up as an impromptu visual puzzle for random passers-by, and it is probably not worth it. But, after performing it myself a few times, I enjoyed it enough to want to share it with all you out there who enjoy flexing your mental muscles and adding a little dash of the surreal to strangers’ lives.

    What follows is an annotated game of solitaire dealt from mnemonica, starting with the 27th card (so the Two of Clubs is the first card dealt, then the Three of Hearts face down next to it as the bottom of pile two, and so on). The first column tells what number move it is, the second says what pile the card is moved from (with 0 being the dealing pile), and d# meaning to deal # sets of three cards (so d3 would mean dealing three sets of three, or nine total). The third column indicates what pile the card is moved to, with the first letter of the suits indicating the card is removed to its ace pile. The fourth column indicates the number of cards to be moved (and if blank is assumed to be one). The fifth column indicates whether or not you must turn the new top card of the pile from column two over or not; if it is blank then after moving the appropriate cards you must turn the new top card over, unless the card is coming from the dealing pile (pile zero). If it has an x then don’t turn the new top card over. Also, after move 78, only four piles remain, and they are re-numbered one through four from left to right for ease of memorization. This all sounds very confusing but, after you play through once (hopefully with your eyes open) it will make sense, and you can tweak the notation to suit your brain.

    As for memorization, I converted each row of data (not including the move number, so anywhere from two to four numbers and possibly an X) into Major memory system words (slightly adapted to allow for the format and the greater number of bit) and then made a story from the words. Then by telling the story in my head I could backtrack to the numbers and play the game. This worked reasonably well for me, but different people’s brains work in different ways, so I’d love to hear what you come up with, or if you have any questions. But more than that, one day I’d like to walk into a coffee shop, look into the corner, and see one of you blindfolded, playing away.

    --Z.Y.

     Anyone who performs magic inevitably gets asked about the concept of misdirection. At first when I got this question I would vaguely talk about making someone look one place while doing something elsewhere, but this always felt incomplete and only partially accurate. Then I stumbled on Apollo Robbins’ excellent TED talk. If you haven’t watched it before, or have forgotten it, go watch it. It’s lots of fun, very clever, and the rest of this won’t make much sense without it:

     Now, although Robbins is technically a stage pickpocket and not a magician, the overlap is obvious, especially on this topic. Although his explanations of attention models were, to me, a little confusing, I thought the procedure he had the audience goes through with their phones was pure gold, and it’s here that I want to focus our Frank -- er, I mean, our attention. It perfectly illustrates that often misdirection isn’t about making someone look at the wrong place, it’s about making them pay attention to, or value, the wrong pieces of information. That way, despite looking at the right place, and having what feels like a complete memory of what happened, they still managed to miss the crucial pieces.

     Once you see misdirection in this larger light, that of controlling how they value information they have received, you see how it applies to effects not based on physical misdirection. For example, in mentalism effects that use some anagram systems, or restricted-choice fishing, often the magician gains important information from misses, which (performed properly) are the mental equivalent of skipping right by the lock screen to see the thought of icon. Obviously I’m not saying spectators will forget your every miss, but neither is anyone saying the audience in Robbins’ talk “forgot” they looked at a screen with a clock in it. Instead, they simply didn’t even realize it was a moment worth remembering.

     “Attention is what steers your perception” -Apollo Robbins

     -- Z.Y.

Dear Reader -- 

Apologies for being out of the office last Thursday, we were radio silent on assignment. 

Starting back up with your regularly scheduled posts today. 

     Here’s an idea that we’ve probably thought too much about, considering how nonsensical it is and how impossible it would be to implement.

EFFECT:
    While cooking breakfast one morning for your previously overnight guest, you claim to have the best remedy for a hungover morning of liquor breath mixed with regret (which is perfect because that’s exactly what both of you have right now). You heat up a frying pan, throw some butter in, crack some eggs, maybe some pepper, so far so good. However, then you sneeze right into the pan.
     “Oops, that darn pepper,” you say. “Can you hand me that napkin?”
     Your confused and slightly grossed out partner hands you a napkin.
     You wipe your nose and toss it into the pan along with the eggs.
     “Bear with me here,” you say “This is going to be so delicious.”
     If they haven’t left yet, you should probably be concerned.    
     You then ask for some dirt from your potted plants, some mayonnaise, crow’s foot, eye of newt, and a used condom, perhaps from the night before, “Amazing source of protein” you mutter under your breath. Toss them all in the pan and fry em up. Swirl this concoction like a witch would their cauldron.
     You ask them for one final item to fetch, then you cover up your vile creation with a lid to let it really stew. Five minutes later, if your partner is still there, you lift up the lid of the pan to reveal a perfectly normal, wholesome omelette, containing none of the elements you have placed in it just moments ago.

METHOD:
     Alright, this is where this really falls flat. You need to build a holdout in the back of your stove top so that you can hot-swap two pans while your partner is turned away gathering your last ingredient. Sorry, but not sorry. You know you love this.

--  J.R. & Z.Y.

    Recently, J.R. and I had the opportunity to see a small theater show by a magician we both respect, and who has created material we both enjoy watching and performing. In the show he had a very strong book test, with a pre showed, dual reality closer. Unfortunately, due to an inattentive spectator, the effect didn’t quite come off, but it, and the memory of the Derren Brown show we mentioned last week, got me think about the importance of really strong scripting, especially in effects like that one.

    Any dual reality effects require you to be very careful in keeping two views or perceptions of an event separate, and pre-show work directly challenges this by forcing you to remind the spectator of the other reality in that very moment without reminding the audience at large. While the specific techniques used will vary effect to effect and performer to performer, one mainstay will be careful scripting, such that the words can (and hopefully must) be interpreted correctly but differently by the two groups. Creating this dual language can be difficult, but definitely pays off in the impact effects that properly employ it can have. (For some excellent examples of this and more ideas in this area, check out almost anything by Luke Jermay.)

     For example, here is a simple script designed to elicit a pre-showed word from a spectator at the end of a book test like the one seen in the show. This script assumes this spectator was handed the book and asked to confirm that the page numbers where on the bottoms of the pages (for another phase of the effect), to make sure the book wasn’t just the same few pages repeating over and over again, and then to immediately pass it off to another spectator. After reading the mind of the spectator they handed the book to you turn to them and say:

     “A moment ago I asked you to confirm the page numbers are on the bottom of the pages, and that the book is normal, correct?” “Yes.” “But I think, even before that, you had seen a word, one that really rooted itself into your head. Is that right? Are you thinking of a word?” “Yes, I am.” “Focus on that word now, the one rooted there, not one that maybe just floated through, or that you skimmed over...”

     Since verifying the page numbers was the first thing the spectator did with the book, being told to think back to before that must mean before they had the book, and thus to the pre-show when you forced or peeked a word they chose. Combine this with the repetition of a specific phrase in both the pre-show work and the moment of recall to jog their memory (“rooted itself,” or whatever fits your presentational style), and asking them not to think of a word that floated through or that they skimmed over (and since you hurry them through checking the book they really only have time to skim it), you ensure they arrive back at the intended word.

     Additionally, none of these instructions to the spectator tip that they are actually thinking of a word not from that book to the rest of the audience. Since most of them wouldn’t be able to see the spectator directly they can certainly believe that they had more time looking through the book, or spent more time really scouring any given page, than you allowed. If additionally you have the book handed back to them just before you begin this phase (but don’t give them a chance to open) and ask them to stand and pass the book back to you after you reveal the word, then you will visually bookend the effect with the image and idea of them holding and looking at the book.

      Seeing this show certainly prompted me to look back over a lot of my scripting choices, and hopefully it will help you as well.

— Z.Y.

     This summer, Z.Y. and I were delighted to get to see “Secret”, sitting next to some well-known NYC players such as Dan White and Steve Cohen (hope you’re enjoying your amethyst surprise btw, Steve), which generated a fantastic energy between the audience and Derren. While we could talk about many of the fantastic elements in the show, we’re going to explore perhaps one of the most overlooked, yet important, elements of magic which Derren (and his team) executes perfectly: Scripting.
    Being familiar with his work, this surprised me; but Derren Brown scripted pretty much every single moment of this show. From the opening monologue to his hypnotic inductions even to his seemingly impromptu jokes and ‘responses’ to audience member reactions, it’s all pre-planned and rehearsed. While sticking with this approach allows for less immediate response the night of the performance, it does allow for Derren to dive deeper into the nuance of his language throughout the show, layering numerous presentational ideas and through-lines within the performance, as well as carefully covering several subtle method-moments, and the result is absolutely mind-blowing.
    Knowing the methods for the effects makes it even more fantastic, because his whole performance is steeped in this lovely mixture of sincere charisma and careful attention. He is a living masterclass in all the details that make something go from 90% to 100%, and this is why he is undoubtedly a star of magic. In this show, he doesn’t employ any overwhelmingly mechanically unique or “new” effects (although the effects are very well-crafted and consistent in conception and methodology, and his take on ESPacology is devastating) and remain powerful on their own, yes. However, when these straightforward effects are combined with his excellent showmanship and language, they are taken into a completely separate realm — one of awe.
    Everyone practicing magic has something to learn from Derren; he’s established himself as a critical thinker of magical presentation with his early books such as Absolute Magic and Pure Effect, and the level of skill, commitment, and attention to detail exhibited through the script of “Secret” is something that everyone can draw inspiration from.

— J.R.

Prerequisite Reading:
 - http://www.thejerx.com/blog/2017/2/5/the-whitmans-algorithm
 - http://www.thejerx.com/blog/2015/11/5/xd5x6br73lhsr3z9xyjtldhmu46dnb
 
Hey all, we are going to be discussing an effect based off work by Andy @ The Jerx and Tomas Blomberg (read those referenced pages above or this won’t make much sense). Thank you both/all for sharing your work, in turn we offer our variation on your effects.
 
While developing a show for a small dinner party in a New England home, we thought a fun effect would be a group game everyone could play after the meal with an unexpected reveal to kick things off and segue into the magical portion of the evening. Our minds immediately jumped to the Kurtnami Code by Andy, which itself was based off a methodology from Tomas, where cards can be randomly played and us making a prediction on where the last card would ended up. After thinking about various ways to tweak this effect for our specific crowd, we came up with:

Konami @ the Dinner Table

MATERIALS:
- One stone or other game token
- Approx. forty cards (exact number will vary depending on the number of participants, but noticeably more cards than you would want to play with) with various directions on them: pass stone left, pass stone right, pass stone left x2, pass stone across, etc. (We chose to draw the instructions on index cards that we found around the house, but you could make up a nice set on double blanks or card stock if you wanted them to last.)

EFFECT:
A group gathers to play a card game where the objective is to collaborate and pass around an object (in this case, a stone) and have it land on a selected person once all the cards have been played. A packet of cards to be used is cut off the large deck, and they are mixed and then dealt out randomly to each player (the magician does not play). The token is set before someone using any standard method of deciding who begins a game (this can be whatever the house favorite is, such as oldest or youngest player, the head of the table, left of the dealer, etc) and the magician asks the group where they want the stone to land.

The participants then play through the game, with the stone landing on one person after all the cards have been played (Stone Person 1). A few more cards are cut off and added to the packet, which is reshuffled and the game is then played again, with the stone starting where it left off, and ending with a new person (Stone Person 2). After calling attention to the two people the stone ended up at after each round, and how it could have ended almost anywhere depending on the number of cards cut, the order they were shuffled, whom they were dealt to, and when they were played, Stone Person 1 and 2 look under their seats and find a prediction marking them both as the only recipients of the stone. (An alternative prediction, depending on your access to the chairs before the performance, is a drawing of the table [see example below], which also allows you to name the recipients.)

NOTES:
While we won’t go into detail on the method (after reading Andy and Tomas’s work most of it should be relatively straightforward), we thought it may be more interesting to discuss some of the presentational aspects which differentiate this from their previous versions.
 
As some of Andy’s readers might have noticed this kind of presentation falls into his “engagement ceremony” style [http://www.thejerx.com/blog/2017/2/16/the-engagement-ceremony]. Tomas’s original Konami code is a process-heavy effect, and essentially anything based off of it will be as well. While thinking of how to present this we stumbled on the idea of it being a game, which not only helped invest everyone in the process but also gave the process itself a goal that everyone could grasp and focus on without revealing the magical purpose. Once in this context it was important that the game itself be fun as well, since although we knew it was leading up to a worthwhile magical payoff, we wanted everyone to think back on the entire event as an enjoyable procedure, not simply being justified by the revelation.
 
Another fun presentational angle this opened was the origins of the game being played. Although the options for this are almost endless we thought it reminded us particularly of the camp games we played as a kids, which the counselors would have us play to get to know each other. Since a number of the following effects that evening were group mentalism demonstrations we decided to play up that angle, and say that the game was designed to help build rapport and get everyone in the same headspace.
 
This lead us to one final presentational subtly, which is that we wanted the game to be cooperative and not competitive. This was partially so we could lean into the “rapport” angle, but also because in the spirit of everyone enjoying the game we didn’t really want there to be any ‘losers’ or people upset by the outcome.
 
We found this variation successful because it made the process into something people authentically enjoyed, left the entire trick in the spectator's hands to perform (if you can even call it that), and, as the (literal) cry of “no fucking way” attested, was genuinely baffling. We hope you have as much success with it, or that the idea at least gives you something to mull over for an inspiration of your own.
 
— J.R. & Z.Y.

Dear Reader -- 

Welcome to the public face of the Four Suits Magic creative body. On this portion of the site we will discuss ideas related to magic, deception, bending the reality in grand and subtle ways, the duality of belief, and more.

While we won’t be revealing any deep magical secrets in these posts, many will assume some knowledge of different magical methods. Where possible we will point to public resources on these topics, but frequently that search will be left to the you, the reader.

Most of the thoughts here, then, will be about the entertaining, strange, and situational elements of magic, and effects that necessitate extreme or specific circumstance. We hope that our discussion will inspire, or at least entertain, and will help you find your way to stronger, more enjoyable magic, for both you and your participants.

A blog appeared!