This is the final post for April. Catch you all back here on Monday, May 6th. The next issue of the newsletter comes out on Sunday, May 5th. Hey, supporters. Remember that thing I wrote you about in last issue of the newsletter? The thing at the end? You have until the end of this month to pick that up if you’re interested. I had someone mail me something recently and it ended up getting sent back because it was never picked up on our end. The process to mail me something is to use the address found here. And then to inform me that you’ve sent me something. I don’t handle the PO Box myself (be ..read more

I have a new item I’ve been carrying around in my computer bag recently that might interest some of you. Yes, let’s get it out of the way, a computer bag is really no different from a purse. It’s a purse which holds a laptop. But don’t look down on that. Be grateful we have an excuse to carry around a little bag with us. For years, only women had this luxury. They needed something to hold their pocket mirror, rouge, and a box of tampons. In those days, women weren’t allowed in the Magic Circle and the International Brotherhood of Magicians. It was commonly understood that pretending to move s ..read more

For just the fourth time since I made the offer four years ago that someone has taken me up on the offer to discuss the worst thing about a product they’re releasing. This time it’s the MultiNotes app from Antonio Ferrara. What Is It? It’s an app that mimics the iPhone notes app and allows you to use it for up to eight multiple-outs. For example (for shitty example), I show you a note in my phone called “The number you’ll name.” I say: “Name a number between 1 and 8.” You say two and I open the note and it says: Then, you begin to worship me as a god. No, again, that was a simple (and bad) e ..read more

Here’s a video of Craig Petty performing some shitty key prediction trick. (It’s not his trick.) The trick itself is wildly flawed. Unless you have late-stage Parkinson’s disease, there would never be that much pen movement involved with writing down a number. And you end up with the goofiest reveal in the history of magic. A digital read out sticker (with clearly markered-out lines) on the back of a wooden key tag. This trick has TWAT nomination all over it. While the trick is obviously room-temperature dog vomit, I want to talk about his presentation, because he does something I see magicia ..read more

I liked [the post Keep Feeling Fascination] and it made me remember the words I heard from Michael Weber once, how we consider people we are performing magic for : 1- Audi ence  ( From Latin for, to listen ) 2- Spec tator ( From Latin Spectare, to look at) 3- PARTICIPANT ( From Latin Participatio, to share ) ( helpers) I try to keep this words in minds and go for the latter and I believe that your post was also sharing the same thing.—KQ Yeah, I think I was hitting on a similar idea. Although in practice I tend to use all of these in my write-ups. “Audience” for when I’m talking about ..read more

The eclipse performance went over spectacularly. We were gathered at my friend’s lake house on the northern border of New York state. I spun the top on my palm a few times leading up to the event, as if I was trying to get the right “feel” for it. In reality, I was trying to gauge the interest and make sure the moment was going to be right. The first time I spun it, one of my friends asked me about it, and I said something about how there’s supposed to be a moment during or around the eclipse that affects spinning objects strangely. Had he just said, “Oh,” and turned around, I probably wouldn ..read more

Jonathan T. writes: If you haven't seen already, thought you'd find this interesting potential premise fodder. It’s a good idea. Let’s talk about crafting the idea so it builds in a satisfying and surprising way. I would probably do the standard 37 force on them first. Then explain it and show them parts of this video. “But it gets weirder…,” Then I would do something that forces a three and a seven from a group of playing cards or number cards. So, something like the Gemini Twins force. This twists the concept in a small but significant way. We’re still using numbers. And we’re still hit ..read more

I’m trying to think the best way to introduce this idea to you. If I tell you how much I’ve been getting out of this idea recently, your expectations are going to be raised and when you read it you’ll say, “Huh? That’s it?” But if I don’t hype it up for you somewhat, I think you’ll underestimate the idea. It’s definitely a small idea. It’s possibly something that other people are already doing without thinking too much about it. But I just stumbled on it myself recently. It’s a Spont. What’s a Spont? A Spont is a concept I wrote about a few weeks ago. At that time, Spont was a placeholder name ..read more

This is an idea from Sam “Stuck In the Middle With You by Stealers” Wheeler. He wrote me about it after my Beta Test Performance Style post last year. He offered it up as another “ego saving” performance style. It’s another way to take the pressure off when you perform. This is for when you have a sleight-of-hand-based routine that you’re not 100% comfortable with yet. Here it is, in his words: I read your post today about The Beta Test Performance Style.  I like the concept a lot. As someone who struggles with feeling guilty about performing I can see this being very useful, I can put th ..read more

I’m taking this email slightly out of context. I’m intepreting the question more generally than it was asked. The basic idea is how to approach people for help when you’re testing out new tricks or techniques. If I'm to have a friend or three selected especially for this task provide discrete and prompted feedback on individual magic tricks, what excuse do you think I should use to avoid the real reason? I'm thinking that I'll just say that I'm part of a secret society that values actual feedback […] and I've been enlisted to test some of the creations of the society out on them.—JN I don’t ..read more