Propless Mentalism

Magic in the Time of Coronavirus: Part 3

If you haven’t done it before, now is the perfect time to connect with someone over video chat and show them a trick. There’s never going to be a better excuse. “I have this trick I’m working on but I’ve run out of people to perform it on in person. Can you hop on Skype for a few minutes?” This reasoning will actually make the trick stronger because of a subtle implication. The implication that you could do this in person, but it’s just this darn coronavirus that’s preventing you from doing so. You should take advantage of this and not do something you could actually do in person. The window of the Skype frame makes switching and ditching and that sort of thing incredibly easy. You don’t need a pocket index, you can have stuff just sitting on your computer desk off frame. And it’s a good time to break out all your tricks that end up unexaminable. Something I do pretty regularly over Skype—pandemic or not—is I have one of those small clear prediction boxes that were popular a few years ago (Clarity Box, Vision Box, Paragon 3d) sitting on a shelf behind me. I bring their attention to the box and the fact that there’s something inside. Then I can ask them to name anything, any word, shape, number, or whatever. I then cleanly grab the box and remove the prediction and it matches perfectly. This is very easy to do, of course, because as they’re naming their word, number, or picture, I’m just writing it on a card out of frame. As long as I’m looking at them and not in my lap or to the side, then they’re not going to suspect anything.

From their perspective, they see a clear box with a piece of folded paper in it sitting somewhere in the frame. I don’t go near it the entire time. At the end I remove the paper and unfold it revealing my prediction matches. I usually tell them to record the screen because they’re going to think I went near the box and did something funny and they’ll want to check again later. The truth is, the switch with these boxes can stand up to that sort of scrutiny. The only real sketchy part is what’s taking place out of frame. This is a great trick to have your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/kid or whoever help you out with. They can just sit down to the side of you without the person on the other end of the Skype call ever knowing they were there. Have that person think of any dream they’ve ever had that they can remember and have them describe it to you. As they do, your accomplice draws a simple image depicting the dream, then folds the card getting it ready to be switched in. Because you’re not doing the drawing yourself, whatever is drawn or written can be more complicated without you looking distracted in the least. And your hands can be in frame and seen empty until the point that your accomplice hands you the prediction off screen. I find this to be a trick people particularly enjoy helping out with. This sort of sneakiness (hiding off screen, secretly drawing the picture, slipping it to you without being seen) is more fun than many of the other things we ask secret assistants to do (e.g., “Scratch your nose when I get to the object people decided on.). So with this trick you get to do something fun for someone over Skype, but you also get to bond with your quarantine partner. Look, you go on Instagram and you see—in a lot of places—people sitting at home doing puzzles and shit. Despite the fact we have tv and internet, people are still starving for some entertainment and interaction. Reaching out and showing someone a trick is, in itself, a

nice gesture. And if you know someone who might be holed up without having many family members or friends to engage with— someone who might be feeling isolated or lonely—it can be a good excuse to reach out to them and check in on them. You might not have the type of relationship where you’d say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about you and I’m a little concerned and I want to see how you’re doing.” But you may feel comfortable saying, “Hey, I’ve got this thing I’ve been working on, can I try it out on you?” And the latter may serve the same purpose, and produce the same results, as the former.

Magic in the Time of Coronavirus: Part 2 March 18, 2020

I was talking to a guy I see frequently at one of my local coffee shops. He has seen me showing people tricks there in the past, but I’ve only ever done something specifically for him like once or twice. We were mentioning the virus and the different ways it was affecting things, big and small. “it’s funny,” I said, “because I had been working on this trick for like… forever… and just when I sort of had it figured out this thing hits and it has completely prevented me from being able to do the trick.” I reached into my bag and pulled out a cased deck of cards. “There’s a trick called the Inverted Card trick. It’s sort of famous in magic. It’s famously difficult, actually. It looks like this… I shuffle the cards. Then I’d spread them and have you select one. Then I’d have you hold it between your palms like this and concentrate on the card.” [During all this, I’m miming all the actions of the trick.] “Then,

I’d take the card back and put it in the deck. Have you shuffle it. Then I’d take the pack back. Spread the cards briefly, then close the deck and hold it between my hands. You’d name the card and when I spread the deck you’d see your card was the only one facing the other way. “There are two things that make it difficult. The first is the way I find your card. Since you held it between your palms it’s going to be warmer than the other cards in the deck. And with practice you can develop the sensitivity to feel that warmth as you spread through the deck. The second thing that makes it difficult is the misdirection and the sleights required to then flip that card over without anyone noticing. “But anyways, I’ve worked on that trick for a long time and just really got it down about a week ago, and now i can’t even really do it. It requires too much passing of the deck back and forth. And holding the cards tight and all that. I think people would be a little weirded out by it “So what I’ve been trying to do is come up with a way to do all that but without both people handling the physical deck. I think I’ve hit on something… can I try it with you? Okay… we’ll just imagine I’m holding a deck here.” We go through the whole process of selecting and shuffling and holding the card… all while just miming it. At the end I ask him what card he chose. He names it. I pause, pull the real deck out of the case, and spread it to show that it’s the only “inverted card.” It’s just a handling for the Invisible Deck, of course. I’ve only done this twice now, but the reaction both times has been really, really good. Here’s why I think that is. Usually with the ID

there’s a chance the audience will get ahead of you. That may lessen the punch of the climax. With this presentation, your spectator will definitely be ahead of you. You told them what’s going to happen. But you also told them how it normally happens: It happens with physical cards and sleights and misdirection. So when you then do it without those things you are reinforcing how clean the ID trick is. They will see just how straightforward and unsuspicious the handling is in a way they wouldn’t know to appreciate if you hadn’t established how the trick is “usually done.” And there’s a very sound logic to the presentation. It feels like a trick that’s borne out of the genuine circumstances we’re in. Not just like a normal trick with some jokes about hoarding toilet paper thrown in. I will continue using some sort of variation on this presentation—i.e., “Here’s how it’s usually done… and here’s this new version I’m working on.”—long after the virus situation has passed. It’s really strong.