essay
-
Cut Your Nails
Category: essayRead more: Cut Your NailsOkay, so I attended Cardistry-Con. After reading the title and the first sentence you’re probably assuming this will just be about hygiene at Cardistry-Con. It isn’t. Stick with me, it’ll be worth it. But to bury the lede for a moment, the event itself was stimulating, and it was inspiring to see so many talented…
-
Read more: The Zen of Magic: Avoiding Method Overloading
Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. Alan Perlis In Self-Working Coin Magic, Karl Fulves poses the following puzzle: Can you arrange six pennies on the table so that each coin is touching four others? It’s not a particularly difficult puzzle. A mathematician might note “Ah, you’re describing an…
-
Memorability: A Misguided Proxy Metric
Category: essayRead more: Memorability: A Misguided Proxy MetricWelcome to the final post in our series on memorability. In the last post, Jerry referenced the “Magic By The Numbers” survey, and in particular, the open-ended question that was used to explore what magical audiences expect to get from a live show. While the raw responses are not available, the summary does not mention…
-
Read more: Mnemonic Possession: The Arc of History Bends Towards Oblivion
A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen. Edward de Bono One of my favorite activities lately has been attending magic shows with laymen friends. I get to pick up a few new performance ideas and get my finger on the pulse of the art as it’s actually being…
-
Spectators as Mirrors
Category: essayRead more: Spectators as MirrorsI met one of my best friends in person for the first time in 5 years. I flew to the country where he was living just to meet him. That first evening, he introduced me to a large group of his friends in his apartment. After he hyped up my card skills, they asked me…
-
No One Is Keeping Your Souvenirs
Category: essayRead more: No One Is Keeping Your SouvenirsEveryone wants to be remembered, but the human memory is notoriously fallible. No one is going to remember exactly everything that took place in your performance next week or next month, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have any influence at all over what is remembered. Rather than jump immediately into every possible aspect…
-
Read more: Banachek’s Salad: Eggplant Is the New Broccoli
I’ve always enjoyed the psychological force of a carrot over the other forces Banachek has written about. The carrot force in its basic form is described in his Psychological Subtleties 1. What I’ve always liked about it in particular is that a carrot does not appear to be the classic archetype of a vegetable. What…
-
Read more: Thinking Through Methods, Pt. 2
Welcome back. In our last episode Drew learned the value of thinking through methods. Today, he’s going to detail how he began to undertake this philosophy and what rewards he reaped by doing so. I just told myself I’d wait for the next time I was fooled. The next time I’d demonstrate patience, and this…
-
Read more: Thinking Through Methods, Pt. 1
There might be a time (hopefully) when a magician friend of yours fools you with something badly. You have no clue how it was done. In this scenario, I implore you to think about the method, instead of immediately giving up and asking how. This post was inspired by a café meeting I had with…
Search
Categories
- commentary (12)
- essay (19)
- fluff (16)
- mail (4)
- oval news (19)
- presentation (8)
- recommendation (3)
- review (4)
- story (8)
- tips (27)
- trick (16)
Recent Posts
- Constructing Your Own Matrix Force
- Cut Your Nails
- Decoding the Matrix Multi-Force
- The Magic Oval 101
- The Annual Company Picnic (In Lieu of Bonuses) Part 1
- Odds and Ends #7: The One About Asian Competitions
- The Poor Man’s WikiTest Approach
- A Review of Michael Kras’s Synthesis & Secrets
- Meeting of the Masterminds
- To Put Too Fine a Point on It
- The Zen of Magic: Avoiding Method Overloading
- Double Blind Control, or Move Them With Your Mouth
- Memorability: A Misguided Proxy Metric
- I Was Wrong About Memorability in Card Magic
- Mnemonic Possession: The Arc of History Bends Towards Oblivion
- Spectators as Mirrors
- No One Is Keeping Your Souvenirs
- Odds and Ends #6: Electric Boogie Licks
- History in Flames: Why Magic Needs Public Museums Now
- Reader Mail #4: The Benefits of Not Using the Same Decks
- The Stripper Fakes A Breather
- Prisoners Passing the Pat Downs
- Banachek’s Salad: Eggplant Is the New Broccoli
- Taking a Peek to the Cinemas
- In Memoriam of Katakura Yuichi, a Japanese Underground Legend
- Thinking Through Methods, Pt. 2
- Thinking Through Methods, Pt. 1
- Oops, Private Post Fixed, and An Unscheduled Update
- “Sorry, I Have To Ditch This”
- Why Do People Hate Crazy Sam’s Mind?
- Magic Mirror on the Wall, Who Has the Fairest Dribble of All?
- Curse You, Andy
- Easter Errata, and a Schedule Shift
- The Forbidden Library: A Prelude
- The Chinese Knockoff: A Presentation For Obvious Gimmicks and Other Things
- Sharing A Thank You
- Monkey Business
- Odds and Ends #5: Hate Mail
- Stop Using the Same Damn Decks
- Dr. Strangelike or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Like Dariel Fitzkee
- Challenge Mentalism: A Follow-up to How To Be Suave
- How To Be Suave: Jason Ladanye vs Brian Tudor
- What’s All The Flap About Prop Quality?
- Chinese Black Magic (The Last Method You’d Think Of)
- Reader Mail #3: Calm Goat Hive
- An Ultra-Mental Memory
- Happy Valentine’s Day, Ya Filthy Animals
- Odds and Ends #4: The Fig One
- Shit, I Forgot About Craig Petty’s Evoke: A Follow-Up
- Like Cards In Rain: Why Card Tricks Are Forgettable
- Jazz in Social Magic #7: Tripling Down
- Jazz in Social Magic #6: Doubling Down
- Jazz in Social Magic #5: Cloud Seven
- Don’t Be A Dick
- Aesthetics: A Damn Principle In Magic
- (Fuck) DJ Hawkins
- Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
- 12 Magical Bad Habits (#13 will shock you!)
- Death of a Blogge (Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery Download)
- The Site Goes Down On You
- House of the Rising Peek
- Vanishing The Fucking Moon!
- Reader Mail #2
- New Year, New Site
- Start A Resolution
- Odds and Ends #3
- Happy Counting: Advocate Addendum
- A Visit From St. Trick
- For Your Convenience
- Rubiked Mentor
- Happy Counting
- Introductions, an Erratum
- …And Then You Show Your Shirt
- Dying People
- Gemini Twins Reloaded
- The Oval Credits
- The World’s Greatest Trick Review
- A Quickie in the Back Seat
- The Akinator Peek Presentation
- Odds and Ends #2
- (Card) Monogamy is Overrated
- A/B Testing
- Action Button
- Ten Second Star Sign Tip
- The Study Center Tear
- Imagination Thieves
- Berglas: The Man, The Mystery, The Legend
- Jazz in Social Magic #4: Wrap-Up
- Odds and Ends #1
- Jazz in Social Magic #3: Rhapsody in Marked Blues
- Jazz in Social Magic #2: Lightning Strikes Twice
- Jazz in Social Magic #1: The Greatest Jazz I Ever Played
- All Hallow’s Eve
- Checking Your ID
- Camouflage Bands
- Reader Mail #1
- Schedule and Report
- Jack Carpenter’s Youtube
- Unworking Wallets
- Marginally Improving Kolossal Killer