Idiosyncratic legerdemain blog. Posts weekly-ish.

  • Zen and the Art of EmotiPsychic Maintenance

    Drew
    Category:

    The Notes

    A note from the Editor: This post is unrelated to The Zen of Magic: Avoiding Method Overloading.

    A note from Drew regarding when and how this post was written: I first had this idea during my final year at university. I was taking a mysticism and occult class (religious studies) and we were required to write about a life experience involving a great coincidence or a “miracle”. I decided to write about the time I pulled off the Berglas Effect with pure luck. (Okay, my life isn’t that mundane, but I figured it’d be a good setup to perform for the professor at some point. I digress.) During the assignment we were asked to attempt to explain the cause of that occurrence. I came up with the theory you’re about to read in this post.

    This post was greatly inspired by David Berglas, and was written while he was alive with the exception of “The Examples”. It has taken a while to work its way through the queue, and the International Man of Mystery has passed away since.

    The Post

    This is inspired by a little chapter inside The Berglas Effects. You won’t have to empty your bank account to understand this post, don’t worry. However, if you’ve read the book, you’ll know that Mr. Berglas talks about “zen” in performance. 

    He has some interesting thoughts on the subject that are worth looking into. I am someone that is by no means heavily religious nor spiritual, but through many performances I’ve come up with an observation.

    (more…)

  • Constructing Your Own Matrix Force

    Franklin
    Category:

    This is a follow-up to Decoding the Matrix Multi-Force because I noticed that, while one can find many examples of different types of matrix force in a variety of books, the general method of constructing them seems to be hard to come by. It doesn’t help that not all effects using the matrix force actually involve making an explicit matrix layout. Nonetheless, finding a set of numbers that achieves any particular result you want is so easy it won’t even take a full length post to explain.

    Remember, our goal is to have a set of n numbers chosen from a square of n² numbers—most commonly 4 from 16, though 5 from 25 has seen some usage—such that exactly one number is chosen from each row and column, and no matter what choices are made, the sum of those numbers is forced.

    (more…)

  • Cut Your Nails

    Drew
    Category:

    Okay, 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 skilled card people in the room. (I dislike when people blatantly label anyone or anything impressive as talented. I think it dismisses the amount of work someone has put into something. The word should be reserved for people who have a clear inherent gift. Forgive the tangent, this is probably more relevant to a “fixed vs. growth mindset” conversation.)

    After one of the days of the convention ended, I went and grabbed late night donuts and coffee with a friend in the center of Shibuya. It wasn’t a cardistry or magic friend, just an old friend that happened to live in Tokyo. He’s an aspiring musician that’s trying to break into the Japanese music industry. We spoke about art, music, magic and the components that make for a good artist. Eventually he told me about his “TikTok-famous” friend who plays the guitar. He told me that he had asked that friend for a piece of advice, and the friend told him something along the lines of:

    “I do a self manicure and moisturizing routine almost every day, because my hands are the primary subject of the videos.”

    That immediately captured me.

    (more…)

  • Decoding the Matrix Multi-Force

    Franklin
    Category:

    Update: We now have a post explaining how to make your very own multi-force matrix!

    “I’ve got something really special here. An old friend of mine just got in touch with me. She was fired from Coca-Cola after working there in top management for the last 30 years. She knows for sure that it was for political reasons rather than the excuses they ginned up, but every lawyer she talks to says she should’ve kept better records since they don’t have enough to even get a reasonable settlement out of a wrongful termination suit.

    “But she was also in charge of watching over this safe, which she has simply denied having. She says it contains the key for constructing the most secret part of the recipe for Coca-Cola, a massively valuable trade secret. In order to sue her for it, the Coke lawyers would have to give up the records she wants in discovery, so they haven’t said a word.

    “They don’t think she can do anything with it anyway, since this massive padlock on the front has a code of who-knows-how-many digits, which would probably run out of batteries before she cracked it. And if she took it to someone who could cut it open, she’d be revealing she possesses stolen property and lose all her leverage…oh, by the way, none of you will mention any of this once you leave here, right? In fact, before we continue, would you mind each signing an NDA?

    (more…)

  • The Magic Oval 101

    Editor
    Category:

    This is the 101st post, so we figured we’d do a rundown of some posts from the past hundred that are underappreciated, along with something else. Whether you’re a newcomer or a reader from the beginning, these may have flown under your radar. Enjoy some thoughts from our writers on their pieces as well.

    The Forbidden Library: A Prelude, by Drew

    Drew sez:

    This was a presentation I had been using for a while, but I never thought to write about it. One day I was jamming with a friend and told him about it, and he convinced me to get it into writing. This is a meta universal presentation that entails you telling a story about a forbidden magic library, and how you’ve managed to learn a trick from said library.

    This is great. The hardest part is pacing things. It’s a wonderful example of the kind of story that can have them wondering “Okay, that was bullshit… but what if…?”

    (more…)

  • The Annual Company Picnic (In Lieu of Bonuses) Part 1

    Editor
    Category:

    As of today, this blog is exactly one year old.

    We’re genuinely appreciative of all your support.

    The Human Resources department has requested a wellness check on each of our employees. So we’ve brought each of them in for a brief interview, which we will now share with you.

    Anne

    Anne is an incredibly valuable resource to the team. Her expansive knowledge of magic, and her being a woman, is a great help.

    It has been one year of working with the blog, so as the token woman I thought it would be fun to share the average day working for the blog as a behind the scenes look for our readers.

    Normally, we all wake up together when the Editor brings us breakfast. It may be unconventional, but a nice big bowl of instant noodles is a great way to start off the day. This is also a great time to discuss the agenda for the day. After breakfast it’s straight to work. There are a lot of things that need to happen in order to get these blog posts out on time with the quality we hope our readers have come to expect.

    The team is busy responding to emails, reading through magic literature, editing upcoming posts, until eventually the Editor comes back with lunch. I assume it is about noon-ish, but the clock in the room doesn’t work anymore. Lunch is usually a nice filling bowl of instant noodles, and once we are filled up we have some more work to do. After all the Slack notifications are taken care of and all our work is done, it’s time for leisure. The Editor usually brings us books or lets us go online to various magic communities. Lots of the staff use this time to practice new routines.

    Eventually the Editor collects all of our books, props and electronics and then we have dinner. A lukewarm bowl of instant noodles is a great way to close out a long day of work.

    After dinner the Editor shuts off the lights and locks the door. We whisper amongst ourselves about what it means to be part of the blog.

    For me, this year I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with a fantastic group of magicians. I feel immensely privileged to have been invited to the blog to talk about magic, to write about magic, and to work with such a passionate group of magicians. I have encountered so many fascinating ideas from this community, so many concepts that challenge how I view magic, so many unique perspectives on our shared art.

    In the short lifetime of the blog it has made me feel like more of a member of the magic community, contributing more to the vast ecosystem of our beloved art than ever before.

    (more…)

  • Odds and Ends #7: The One About Asian Competitions

    Editor
    Category: ,

    Oh boy, it’s almost a year since this place got started! How exciting. We do have a little something planned, but not much. Maybe more next year, if we make it that far. On that note, there might be less posting for a little while after the anniversary. There’s gonna be some shakeups in our lives, and we probably won’t have the time for weekly posts for a bit.

    What’s that you say? “But Mr. Editor, you didn’t even have a post last Sunday! And this Sunday’s post is 12 hours late!”?

    I’m very sorry. Full refunds will be processed for anyone with a receipt.

    So, we have good news and bad news. Good news first.

    The good news is, there’s a marvelous library full of magic books available for anyone to read in Omaha, Nebraska.

    As a magic blog that was founded in 2023, we would be remiss not to mention that you can read any Jerx book save for the latest one there. If you’re a new subscriber, fret not, we’re nothing like the Jerx anymore. We just started out a bit like it. Hard not to be influenced by a whale taking up all the space in the pond.

    The bad news is, our article about museums is now a relatively moot point. And also was four years ago for that matter, when this research library was founded.

    Justin Miller is soon to announce that he is retiring from magic.

    I wish I were joking.

    (more…)

  • The Poor Man’s WikiTest Approach

    Drew
    Category:

    “That’s great – I love that.”

    – Marc Kerstein

    If you don’t have the WikiTest app by Marc Kerstein, this post won’t be of any use for you. Actually, for those kitted out with PeekSmith devices, Apple Watches, or $400 Sharpies with screens in them, this will be useless for you too.

    After seeing the newest update of WikiTest that Marc put out, I thought it’d be good timing to share this peek that I’ve been using when performing this effect. This is for those like me, who only have the WikiTest app, the Pro Tools addition, and the phone the app is on (obviously). That’s it. I think this is probably the cleanest approach to doing the peek with a barebones type of setup.

    With the dawn of the new $120 DFB app, it’s beginning to be hard not to argue that the current trend in tech/app magic is that clean methods fetch big prices. I want this post to contradict this trend in magic. You don’t need money to have clean-ass methods. (This post emphasizes the ass part, as you’ll see.)

    (more…)

  • A Review of Michael Kras’s Synthesis & Secrets

    Franklin
    Category:

    Michael Kras’s new book Synthesis & Secrets seems to have sold like hotcakes. It’s already sold out basically everywhere. But there are a few dozen copies set to be sent out to retailers in October, so it’s not too late to get a copy if you’re on the ball. Given that Michael is (or at one point was) one of our readers, we’re going to return the favor with a review. This is not a sponsored review – we paid full price for this book.

    (more…)

  • Meeting of the Masterminds

    Drew
    Category:

    In the previous post, I wrote about my preferred way to mark Bicycle “end-for-end” or “misindexed” gimmicked decks. To be honest, I only use that specific marking system when I perform with the magnificent Mastermind deck, created by Chris Kenworthey. Familiarize yourself with this first if you’re unaware of its genius simplicity.

    I figured I’d now share my take on the Mastermind. There is an open choice between two face-up cards. If you think you understand, read on, because there are some important subtleties.

    This story starts off with you giving your friend a little black purse. You mention that there’s a message in there, folded neatly and waiting for them within the folds of that handsome leather. Out of your pocket now comes a deck of cards. You hand it to them to give it a few cuts. You take it back, and you spread them face up on the table explaining that they will randomly place their finger somewhere on the spread.

    As they begin to reach out with their hand, you stop them. You take the deck and spread it face down.

    “Actually, let’s keep it a mystery. Remember, the cards that you mixed are out of my hands and on the table. No funny business. Put your finger on any part of the spread.”

    Your friend reaches out and places their finger down on the spread.

    “You see right there? Your finger is technically contacting two cards. I want to be as fair as possible. Slide both of them out.”

    (more…)

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