JISM is our award-winning series on Jazz in Social Magic. That’s all the name means. Jazz in Social Magic. Don’t make this weird.
Recently, I did two tricks for someone. They both failed. As a result, the performance was a huge success, bigger than it would’ve been if they had succeeded. Let me explain.
I was in the parking lot of my apartment building, late at night. She had never seen me do a magic trick before. I had the three of diamonds in my pocket as well as a piece of paper with SEVEN written on it, so I thought I’d go for a psychological force. First, I used equivoque to get to diamonds, and then asked her to name a small number. She named two. Okay, no worries, I still have a 50% chance of success. Does she want to move up one or down one, I ask?
Down one. Well, shit. I didn’t have a deck of cards on me, nor did I have an ace of diamonds. Time to twist this around on her. I pulled the three of diamonds out of my pocket, casually bringing the paper out with it.
“You were so close!” I said, and she saw the card and laughed.
“I’m sorry, that’s my bad,” she said.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Alright, name a number between 1 and 10.”
“Six.” (This seems like the most commonly named number after seven, incidentally.)
Oh boy.
“Do you want to go up one or down one?” I said, displaying the piece of paper in my hands. What were the odds I would get unlucky again? (Fifty percent, in case you were wondering.) But then I realized something, and I knew the trick would work out either way.
“Hmm, down!”
As she said it, I turned around the piece of paper, and she laughed when she saw the big bold word seven, but it wasn’t to humor me. It was an amazed laugh.
“It’s okay, you’ll do better next time.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“Thanks!” I said, amazed myself that I pulled that off. Of course, it’s obvious why. The same exact thing happened twice! Surely I must have intended it, yes?
If she had gone up one, the second trick would have still been a success, of course. But it is my belief that it wouldn’t have been as powerful as this outcome, which reframed the earlier mistake as intentional. Either way was a winner.
Keep it in mind. Once is a mistake. Twice is a running gag.
On Sunday, Drew will talk about a similar experience he had with the classic routine Which Hand.