FUZZY
LOGIC by Tom Stone
Foreword
This is a collection of notebook ideas, and loose thoughts. I just threw it together, because it seems like some people enjoy things like this, not because I think it is such a great idea to fill an ebook with the kind of stuff I normally use as padding in my other ebooks. Anyhow, here it is - a bunch of.... something. -Tom Stone May 2009
Turn the right hand palm up to display three faces, as the left hand put the rest of the deck on the table. -”These three cards will somehow give me a clue about the identity of your card. I’m not sure how yet, because it becomes different each time.” Turn the cards face down and square them. Do an Elmsley Count : -”One, two, three.... four? Eh, sorry, should be just three.” Drop the last card onto the table. Do an Elmsley Count again. Once again, there are four cards. Drop the last card on the table. Do a third Elmsley Count. Drop the last card on the table. Do an Elmsley Count (3 as 4), and drop the last card on the table Do an 2 as 4 Count, drop the last card on the table. With frustration -”I’m not getting this... what card did you have!?” When answered, sigh with relief: -”Ah, the cards wanted to tell me that it was a (SLAP) Four!” - Slap the remaining card, showing it to be just a single card, and turn it face up to display the selected Four.
Magic for Magicians
Cylinder and Gosh
The plot in John Ramsay’s “Cylinder and Coins” is too short - it’s more a “trick” than a performance piece. Why not use Al Goshman’s Coin under Salt Shaker as an intro, with the cylinder instead of the Salt Shaker? Start with just one coin, then add three more for the finish.
The Annoying Four
Based on Edward Victor’s 11 Card Trick. Secretly cull the 4 Fours together and classic force one of them - doesn’t matter which one. As the Fours are together, the force is likely to work even if it miss by one card. Cut the deck so that the remaining Fours are nowhere near the top of the deck. When the selected card is returned, it is controlled to the third position from the top. Easiest is to use a Bluff Pass underneath two cards. Take a break underneath the forth card from the top, and take this quadruple from above in an end grip. Move the quadruple a bit to the right and pick up the next card slightly sidejogged, and do the same again to pick up yet another card.
It is often useful to ask oneself the question “What is the effect?” For example, some tricks might get wonderful reactions when shown to fellow magicians, but fall flat when shown to laypeople. That those tricks have no appeal is usually not because of lack of meaning, but a sign that the performer has lost sight of the real effect and believes that the method is the same as the effect. Which happens easily. I remember when I first started to play around with PhotoShop and POV-ray. I became so fascinated with the possibilities, and made a lot of images to explore each feature in the software. The result were very satisfying, and for a while I believed that I had made good images, when in fact, they were lousy in all aspects except as demonstrations of the tools. That is, I confused the method for the effect. To continue with the image analogy: If my audience doesn’t respond to a new piece of art as I had anticipated, then I might do well to ask myself: “Am I displaying a great painting, or am I merely demonstrating the features of this great paintbrush?”
Open Cards to Pocket
Inspired by David Roth’s “The Sleeve”: Do Cards to Pocket in two phases - the first phase like the Carlyle Homing Card. Then, brutally, rip the pocket out of the pants and place it on the table, saying: -”It might be easier for you to follow now.” But still, the cards magically vanish from your hands, one by one, and appears in the detached pocket on the table.
Fuzzy Logic :: 2
Prov.31.6
A quickie when at a bar. When no one is looking, put your right hand in the side pocket of the coat, then take a glass in under the coat and grab it with the right hand through the cloth of the pocket. The right thumb is marked with an “A” in the illustration. Index finger is underneath, and the rest of the fingers are on the other side. The glass can be held there secretly for a while. Suddenly, say that you need a drink. Clearly position the left hand in front of the stomach, then turn 360 degrees around. As soon as the left hand is out of view, the right hand moves the glass up so that it arrives to the left hand that grabs it. The right hand then drop back down again. Left arm should be as motionless as possible As you come around a full turn, the drink seems to have appeared in your left hand from nowhere.
Orange Osmosis
The following has been shown to be ineffective: Borrow a bill and burn it openly without any covers. Then cut open an Orange and show a bill inside, claiming it to be the same bill. The audience will believe it to be a duplicate. That, sometimes was used as an example on the “Too Perfect Theory” (an old theory that has been thoroughly refuted, and should not be referred to as a valid theory). But the above is not a “real” effect. Because if you produce a thing without first making it vanish, you’ll do actually display a duplicate. Think about it - it is not a magical effect to destroy something. Burning the bill is not the same thing as a disappearance - because the audience can see the ashes fall from the burning bill. And if the ashes of the destroyed bill still are in plain sight when the orange is cut open, the audience has no other choice than to think “duplicate”. Not only that, it lacks a story structure - there is no plot link between the actions. The plot thread of the burning bill has no connection with the plot thread of finding a bill inside an orange, so it is close to impossible for the audience to become so “taken” by the plot that they invent their own proofs... To fix things, to make it into a working effect, two things need to happen. The ashes needs to be dealt with, and there must be a story structure, a plot link between the actions. Something like: A bill is borrowed and burnt openly without any cover. The ashes are carefully gathered in a small tray. You look at the ashes, then you look at an orange on the table. The orange is picked up, and the ashes are rubbed against the orange. When all the ashes has been rubbed in and become dust particles, the orange is cut open and shown to contain a bill. ...And now the effect works!
Imaginary Spectator or Real Artist?
This is sometimes said: -”You should design your magic so that your audience cares about it. Because if they don’t care, why are you doing the trick for them?” The whole premise for this question is wrong. I’m not a salesman, and they are not customers. If I was a painter, and a total stranger came up to me and asked me to draw an image of a crying child, I would respond: “Do it yourself.”, unless I myself found that motif interesting to explore (or if I was broke, but then that person would be a customer and not an audience). If I’m designing an effect, I’m usually doing it long before it comes before a real audience. And at that point, how on earth should I know whether the effect will be meaningful to a real spectator or not? At that point, all I can do is to guess and Fuzzy Logic :: 3
create an imaginary spectator - a mental construct that has no life on its own. An extension of my own mind, still me, but probably made more bland and general. And then the magic will be designed likewise - more bland and general... and it still will be all guesswork. Why not design it to suit a real person instead. A living and breathing person that are already present? Me! If I perform Coin in Bottle, it will be because I myself find it meaningful. How could it be in any other way? The only other way to ascertain whether the spectator care about it or not is to actually perform it first, and that will not give you any knowledge at all about what the next spectator’s opinion about it will be. If the focus is on designing things to be meaningful for the spectator, your performance will easily be vague as you are dealing with the unknown and have to rely on guessing, because you are not that person. And if you try to get around the guessing, by asking the spectator: “Do you find ‘Coin in Bottle’ to be meaningful”, he will answer “Huh?”. For him to understand your question, you must perform the effect first, and after that his reply is useless to you, because the effect has already been performed. No, the easiest way to give a strong and clear performance is to perform effects that are meaningful to you as an artist. Basing it on your own thoughts and opinions is better, because then you will be knowing instead of guessing. Rely on social inductance. Audiences will become interested in anything a performer devotes his full and accurate attention to, ie cares about...something of meaning to him.
Incompetent Cards to Pocket
You proudly state that you will cause these 10 cards to travel, one by one, into your pocket. But to your frustration, none of the cards appear in the designated pocket - instead they appear everywhere else; in your other pockets, in the breast pocket, in your shoe, inside the lining of your tie... And for each failure, you get more and more frustrated, and in anger you finally throw the deck up in the air... where it vanishes... and surprised, but triumphant, you end by taking the whole deck out of the designated pocket.
Roomtone
To be experimented with: When making movies, they often record the silence from every location... Because it is never really silent anywhere, there’s always some small
sounds. that is unique for each location This is used if it is necessary to edit dialogue, as a background, so that it will not sound alien to the environment. Recordings of silences is called “Roomtone”, and many of these can be found on the internet. Let’s say you’ve got a Roomtone recording of a room similar to the one you are performing in... and that you play this in the speakers during the performance. I guess the audience would not notice it much, since the sound would be similar to the room’s authentic tone. But what would happen if you started to mess around with it, at the “magic moments”? Like, suddenly turned it off? Or briefly crossfaded it to the Roomtone of a big church or a small damp cellar? Maybe that would be noticed only on a subconscious level, as a weird and uneasy change of atmosphere? Who knows?
derringer
I’ve noticed that laypeople very often flash the bottom card when they are asked to shuffle a deck of cards. There should be a great trick based on this observation, but in lieu of that, I’ve had some success with the following. It uses a stooge, so I’m only doing this when I’m not working, when being a guest at a party or sessioning with magicians. Give the following instructions to a friend: “Subtract the other guy’s number from 52, and name the sum as your own number when I ask you.” If the friend is lousy at math, tell him to use the calculator in his cellphone, while pretending to answer a text message. You also need a deck of cards, a pen and two bits of paper. Performance. Let a spectator (person A) shuffle the deck. Hopefully, he’ll flash the bottom card, otherwise make some kind of standard glimpse. Remember the bottom card. For the duration of this description, let’s say it is the Ace of Diamonds. Ask Person A and the stooge to each think on a number between 1 and 52. Take a bit of paper, and say “Notice that i write *before* you say anything!” Write “Ace of Diamonds” on that slip and fold it. Place it on the table. Now, ask Person A to name his number. Let’s say it is “30” - immediately your stooge will subtract that from fifty-two: 52-30=22, and remember that result. Ask Person A to pick up the deck and deal off as many cards into a face-down pile, and turn the last card, the 30’th. card, face up. In this example, the 30’th card turns out to be the Two of Spades. Place this card next to your folded slip of paper, and let the spectator drop the remainder of the
Fuzzy Logic :: 4
deck on top of the tabled cards. This sets the former bottom card at a position equal to the number your stooge is thinking of. Turn toward your stooge and say “Notice that i write *before* you say anything!” Write “Two of Spades” (Person A’s card) on that slip, fold it and hold it between the finger tips of your left first and second finger. Ask your stooge to name his number, which in this case is 22. Then ask him to pick up the deck and deal off as many cards on the table, turning over the last one. Just as the stooge deal the first card, you just dip down calmly with the left hand and pick up the first slip of paper between the left thumb and first finger, leaving the second slip in its place. Aim for the same kind of “feeling” as in a Top Change. This bold switch should be over by the time the stooge deal the third card. The stooge turns over the 22’nd card, and it is the Ace of Diamonds. Remind the spectators that you wrote your message before anything was said, and open the slip to show the text “Ace of Diamonds. Person A is then allowed to open the tabled slip himself, and it has his card written there. Different switch: A less bold switch is to hold the second slip between the left thumb and second finger. As the stooge start to deal, you drop the left hand down so that the left first finger can slide the tabled card a bit to the left, and the slip is dropped next to it. The first slip then becomes alone, and the card turned up by the stooge is then placed next to it.
A thought on identification
When making a ball disappear and appear under a cup in the Cups and Balls, the audience believe that it is the same ball, even though the balls are not signed. But in many “Card to impossible location” effects, it is necessary to have the card signed, or the audience might suspect that it is a duplicate. Why is that? The dramatic structure of the latter seems to be flawed. With a better structure, the audience should become convinced that it is the same card, to the degree that they invent their own proofs. How should the structure be designed?
Ten Cards to Pocket thoughts
When creating the routine, try to work out the method backwards. Since the two last cards are the most difficult (there’s almost no good ways of handling those few cards in the literature), it might be fruitful to start by inventing a good ending - and then design the rest of the routine to make you end up in the necessary position for the climax. In a long routine like this, it is important that the structure is dynamic. I get the feeling that it might be a good idea to look at Slydini’s “Paperballs over the head” (there’s video clips on YouTube). The structure is something like: 1. The first three effects is done gradually slower and slower to make it appear more and more impossible for the spectator. 2. Suddenly it is a blur of effects - the balls vanishes and reappears in a mind-boggling manner. 3. Then at the end, the performer slows down dramatically and exaggerates the conditions to a ridiculous level, which makes everyone think that it is impossible to succeed - yet he manages to succeed. A similar structure would probably work nicely in a Cards to Pocket routine also. By the way, ten cards is an awkward number, so I think I would choose to let three cards go at the same time at some point, making it just seven teleportations. For the last card.. Maybe black art against the body?
Wooden Sign
For the Signed Card plot: A wooden board, a bit larger than a deck of cards. A face-down card is stapled to the upper side of it. Centered underneath is a piece of double-stick tape. Show the board and the card, let a spectator feel the staple with a finger. Spectator hold three aces, believing it to be four. Selection is made, signed, and secretly switched for the fourth ace - and inserted between the cards the spectator holds. The selection is instead controlled to the bottom of the deck, and is secretly reversed. Fuzzy Logic :: 5
Now a re-cap. As you take up the wooden board to display the stapled card, you rest the left part of the board against the top of the deck - which gives cover to do a bottom deal, in under the board. The selection now get stuck on the double-stick tape. As you turn your attention to the cards the spectator holds, you return the board to the table, turning it over in the process. End by letting the spectator discover that the signed card is gone from aces. Cleanly, lift a corner of the stapled card, so the spectator can se that it is the same card. Then use Jim Steinmeyer’s gaffed Staple remover from “Device and Illusion”, to pretend to remove the staple, while punching holes in the signed card.
Flying Fruit
Cut a “star trap” in an orange, and carefully dig out the inside with a spoon. Put a small apple inside the empty peel and fold back the flaps, so that the orange looks whole. Put a peeled orange in one side of a change bag. You also need another apple and a ungaffed bag. Show the prepared orange and drop it inside the unprepared bag, and give it to a spectator to hold. Show the change bag empty, then show the apple and drop it inside. Make the magic happen... The fruits will change place, you claim... Ask the spectator to peek inside his bag and say if the apple has turned up. No, he replies. You get surprised, and takes up an orange without peel from your bag. Take the spectators bag, pick up the prepared orange... then peel it to show the apple inside.
Math vs. Magic
A while back Tomas Blomberg showed me his version of a Jack Parker effect that was based on Jim Steinmeyer’s “The Nine Card Problem” (Magic magazine, May 1993). I still can’t figure out how it works - my mind isn’t shaped for such tasks but while playing around with it, I came up with the following. It should probably not be viewed as a performance piece, but rather something... else... Steal the four Aces out of the deck and let a spectator shuffle the deck. Replace the Aces on the bottom of the deck, when it is returned. Cut the deck in four piles, doing a bottom slip cut (HaLo Cut) on each cut, so that an Ace end up on the bottom of each pile. Try to cut exactly 13 cards in each pile. Say that you will illustrate the difference between mathematical tricks and “real” magic.
Let four spectators pick up one pile each. Instruct them to think on a number between 6 and 12. Let them count of as many cards, one by one, in a face down pile on the table. The last card they count off should be peeked at, remembered and replaced on top of the tabled cards. The remaining cards in the hand should then be dropped on top, and the assembled pile is picked up again. The next step is to spell the word “Mathematic” (or any word between 6 and 12 letters long), dealing one card for each letter into a pile on the table. The remaining cards are dropped on top and everything is picked up again. The third step is to count off as many cards as the original number again, and turn the last card face up. They do so, and all spectators find the card they had remembered. -”That was a mathematical trick. Not very arousing, right? Now, let us try magic instead!” Tell the spectators to knock three times on the cards they have left in their hands, and turn over the top card. They all turn over an ace. Sing Hallelujah, brother!
Micro-Macro WOW
It looks really good to change a normal card to a miniature card, using Masuda’s WOW! If you got the prop, try it out. One could combine this with Bro. John Hamman’s “Micro-Macro”: -”To make it easier to travel, I’ve compressed the cards like this. To get them back to normal size, I just have to shake some air back into the cards.” The small cards turn into normal sized cards. Then take one card face up (one matching the WOW gaff) and pretend to insert it into the WOW-sleeve (fingers and angles can cover the miniature card already there), but in reality it is put underneath and stolen away somehow. Use the gaff to change the normal sized card into a miniature card. -”Unfortunately, I need this solar-powered panel to compress the cards again, and I have to do it one by one - like this - and it takes forever!”
Twisting the WOW
Masuda’s WOW can also be used as an encore to Dai Vernon’s “Twisting the aces”. A card turn visibly face down, even when enclosed in a plastic sleeve.
Cinderella mentalism 1
A guy on the Genii forum once posted the following story, and wanted to make it into a mentalism piece.
Fuzzy Logic :: 6
Cinderella is now 95 years old. After a fulfilling life with the now dead prince, she happily sits upon her rocking chair, watching the world go by from her front porch, with a cat named Bob for companionship. One sunny afternoon out of nowhere, appeared the fairy godmother. Cinderella said, “Fairy Godmother, what are you doing here after all these years”? The fairy godmother replied, “Cinderella, you have lived an exemplary life since I last saw you. Is there anything for which your heart still yearns?” Cinderella was taken aback, overjoyed, and after some thoughtful consideration, she uttered her first wish: “The prince was wonderful, but not much of an investor. I’m living hand to mouth on my disability checks, and I wish I were wealthy beyond comprehension.Instantly her rocking chair turned into solid gold Cinderella said, “Ooh, thank you, Fairy Godmother”. The fairy godmother replied “it is the least that I can do. What do you want for your second wish?” Cinderella looked down at her frail body, and said, “I wish I were young and full of the beauty and youth I once had.” At once, her wish became reality, and her beautiful young visage returned. Cinderella felt stirrings inside of her that had been dormant for years. And then the fairy godmother spoke once more: “You have one more wish; what shall it be?” Cinderella looks over to the frightened cat in the corner and says, “I wish for you to transform Bob, my old cat, into a kind and handsome young man.” Magically, Bob suddenly underwent so fundamental a change in his biological make-up that, when he stood before her, he was a man so beautiful the likes of him neither she nor the world had ever seen. The fairy godmother said, “Congratulations, Cinderella, enjoy your new life. With a blazing shock of bright blue electricity, the fairy godmother was gone as suddenly as she appeared. For a few eerie moments, Bob and Cinderella looked into each other’s eyes. Cinderella sat, breathless, gazing at the most beautiful, stunningly perfect man she had ever seen. Then Bob walked over to Cinderella, who sat transfixed in her rocking chair, & held her close in his young muscular arms. He leaned in close, blowing her golden hair with his warm breath as he whispered: “Bet you’re sorry you had me neutered.” I and several others came up with brainstorming ideas, but it became obvious that the guy didn’t want ideas, he wanted a fleshed out performance piece, ready to use, and was quite ungrateful for the assistance he received. Here’s one of my ideas that were rejected:
How about a mentalist’s version of “Sam the Bellhop”? You have a table full of objects, and some small paper bags. The audience put an object in each bag, randomly. Then the bags are put in random order, in a line. Now, the mentalist opens an envelope, takes out a letter with the Cinderella story, and a reads it out loud. Here and there he stops, open the next bag in line and takes up an object. And the object makes sense in the story! I.e: -”Instantly her rocking chair turned into solid gold..” (object of gold is taken out of a bag) -”her beautiful young visage returned” (Make-up kit from the next bag ) -”Cinderella felt stirrings” (an egg beater ) Etc. etc. For the final line, bring out scissors from the final bag, look at it until the audience ALMOST gets it, and end the story -”Bet you’re sorry you had me neutered.”
Cinderella Mentalism 2
Show five different books of collected childrens stories (all in the same size), and drop them in a big paper bag. Reach down into the bag. the audience hear you tear out a page from one of the books, but they can’t see which book. You show the page, and its heading is “Cinderella”. This inspires you to tell the joke about the older Cinderella. Give the page to a spectator, and start to refer to the spectator in respectful terms, and call him “The Prince”. Take the five childrens books and place them in a row. Tell the audience that the Prince now will demonstrate the same uncanny ability that once led him to find the girl to whom the glass shoe fit - by finding the book to which the torn page fits. The Prince decides on one of the books, and sure - that is the book from which the page was torn. (Perhaps better to use a process of elimination to better build the effect). Give the book as a gift to the Prince, and conclude: -”...and may you two live happily ever after!”
White Death
-”Up north, during the winters, in the old days, people would cross rivers by jumping from ice floe to ice floe. Knowing which floe that was safe to jump to wasn’t easy, since they all the sheets of ice looked the same from above. The ones who possessed a grain of precognition always made it over safely. The ones without soon stepped wrong, the floe cracked and they drowned - claimed by the white death, as the old folks used to say. This Darwinistic elimination has caused the people from
Fuzzy Logic :: 7
the north to have slightly higher precognitive abilities than the general population. Do anyone here have a northern heritage?” If anyone gives a positive answer, use that person, otherwise just choose someone and just claim that this person has a such heritage. You have a Himber wallet. In one side, there are ten cards, blank both sides. On the underside of the second card is written “CRACK!” with expressive lines radiating outwards from the word. In the other side of the wallet, there are four blank cards and all of them has “CRACK!” written on the undersides. You also has a small bit of crumpled up paper. Written on that paper is: “You will be claimed by the White Death on your last jump”
At the last jump, you have already pointed out that one card is safe and the other is unsafe, so if the spectator jumps to the “safe” card, you end by asking him to turn over all the cards he chose to use (the are all blank), and then all the cards he didn’t jump to (they all say “CRACK!”). The spectator might go against good sense, and chose the “unsafe” card, then turn over all the other cards. It is shown that the final jump was done to a card that said “Crack!” - then ask the spectator to open the ball of paper. Fix (short term): Find a more discreet switch the discarded cards. Fix (long term): Bring the performance into the “here and now”, instead of being a second hand drama. Maybe as a stage effect with big polystyrene sheets, looking like real ice floes, and actually jump between them, guided by a spectator’s intuition...
Bring out the ten cards. Take the top one and show both sides, and say: -”We can call this a good floe, a strong and solid sheet of ice. Feel!” Give the card to the spectator to feel. Then place it on the table, close to you. Then take the next one, very carefully, as if you are afraid that it will break. -”This floe looks the same from the top, but it is thin and weak, and will break easily. Feel carefully!” Hold out this card, without exposing the writing underneath, and let the spectator just touch it. Place that card next to the first one. Point out, again, that one is strong and the other weak - then deal out the rest of the cards, so that you get five pairs in a row between you and the spectator. The Himber wallet is laying to the side, opened. Give the crumbled small paper ball to the spectator, saying it will symbolize him. Now, let the spectator jump with the small paper ball, to get across from his side to yours. The card not jumped to, is removed at each jump and is casually placed in the Himber wallet. As the fourth card is placed there, and the spectator is preparing for the final jump, you close the Himber walled and open the other side - switching out the discarded cards.
White Death (method 2)
A big window, backed with black cloth. Ten blank adhesive cards are put in a double row at the left side. On the right side, the word “CRACK!” is written in black on the glass at five different places. This writing is not seen due to Black Art. The spectator jumps. Each card that’s not being jumped to, is moved and placed right over a point where it is writing on the glass. At the end, drop the black cloth and rotate the window to show the result
Fuzzy Logic :: 8
Knee Servante
Here’s one place: http://www.sculpt.com/catalog_98/craft/varaform.htm
A strap with magnets are around the knee underneath the trousers. A small basket made out of a fine black mesh/net, and has a rim made of flexible piano thread, then can be attached on the outside. The basket can be attached during performance, covered by the table. If needed, one can place both hands on the knees, apparently for support, and look underneath the table - the hand covering and squishing the basket. This contraption can assist when doing servante work or lapping techniques
Mating for Life
Mental Sports
Ed Mellon’s Quantimental stand + balls. Label, nailwriter, sport equipments. Unclear? Let’s expand... On the stage, you have a stand with five balls from different sports (tennis, golf etc.) This is rigged as Ed Mellon’s Quantimental stand, so that you secretly can see in which order the balls is taken from the stand. Next to the stand is a basket with matching sporting gear (tennis racket, golf club etc.). Each item has a blank paper tag attached to it. And you have a boon writer. Ask 6 people to join you on the stage. Five of them in a row, and one beside you. Name the five, one through five. The one next to you covers your eyes while the five spectators, one by one, choose one ball each and hides behind their backs. They do this in the order they stand. Once done, you take a peek at what the Quantimental Stand tells you - Maybe the first spectator has taken a golf ball, then you take the golf club and as you peer at the paper tag, you write the number 1 on it with the boon writer. Ask the 6’th spectator to read the label out loud, and then give it to the named spectator, who hold it in front of the body. Repeat until done. Ask the spectators to, one by one, show what they’ve got... The guy holding the golf club have a golf ball. The guy holding the tennis racket have a tennis ball. etc.
Celastic replacement
After reading the Roy Benson book, I wanted to get hold of the material Celastic, as it sounded like a perfect material to use when making gaffs and prototypes. Not that easy to find. But I found something even better: A non-toxic thermoplastic resin called “Varaform”. Just heat it up in water, then make any form you want - and as soon as it cools it is rigid again. Just google for the word “Varaform”, and you’ll find plenty of suppliers.
You have four couples at a table. Each couple selects a king and queen of the same suit. You make up some story about a method to find out whether the current man/ woman constellation really is the best one, of if they would be better off to trade partners with each other. The kings are shuffled into the deck. The joker, representing the magician, is added just to spice up things. Then each woman cut their queen into the deck. And, fortunately, each queen ends up besides the correct match. And as a final twist, the joker appears face up at the top of the deck, and the magician, with a sly smile, says, “Then all these girls must belong to me...” And the deck is turned over, and is shown to be all queens.
Misunderstanding Meaningful Magic
When talking about meaningful magic, many seem to claim that the effects then must deal with life, death, survival, money and material needs. Preferably from the spectator’s view. Like, that Miser’s Dream is inherently meaningful, because everyone want more money. Or the classic, produce a sandwich when someone says he’s hungry. Well, then the themes are all found at the base level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. And the number of effects are quite limited then. (Now Maslow’s Hierarchy is pseudo-science, and shouldn’t be taken too serious. But it can be handy to look at for inspiration) Isn’t it more interesting to search for themes at higher levels? Looking at Maslow again, we might look at the seventh level: “7) Self-actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one’s potential” Well, a theme like “artistic growth” would correspond to that. But how could I use that theme if I’m trying to create something that is meaningful for the audience? Well, I can’t. I am not the audience, and it is impossible for me to even guess what kind of artistic growth they are searching for. What I CAN do however, it to illustrate my own desire for artistic growth. To display something that is extremely meaningful to me. That is much more easy, and I’m sure that there are an audience for a such display.
Fuzzy Logic :: 9
When I was 15 I bought Histed’s “Pom-Pom Prayer Stick”, an effect similar to the Chinese Sticks. I devised a corny presentation for it, ridden with one-liners, and put it into my act. But as the years passed, my taste for magic evolved, and slowly I began to despise this effect. But, by then it had became a such surefire tool to get laughter, and I had nothing equally effective to replace it with. A while later, the despise turned into hate. Why couldn’t I just throw this piece of junk away? Well, I didn’t dare. It had been with me for so long, that I didn’t feel safe without it. That was when I still thought that I should care about what the audience wanted to see.
basic effects. This was my response: Regarding your question: “Under what categories do we list the Chinese Sticks and a Card Location?” My answer would be “Don’t!”
Like other stories, this one also have a turning point: One day, in an outburst of frustration, I whipped out the stick from my bag and shouted “I hate this piece of crap”. Then I did the routine as usual, but with a clear display of contempt, as I explained everything that I hated about it. I asked the audience why they laughed, and I blamed them for forcing me to perform it. The result was surprising, the response was ten times stronger than usual.
The way you pose your question is, in my eyes, similar to: “There are only three different kinds of bottles! Bottles for water, for milk and for wine! Now divide the world into these categories. What bottle does asphalt belong to? Do sunshine belong to water, milk or wine? ...The world is too big to allow itself to be reduced like that. The same with magic.
I learnt a lot that day. What had been a piece of fluff, puzzling eye-candy with a collection of bad one-liners, was transformed into a honest display of my frustration over my lack of artistic growth. And they found it extremely funny that I stood there and blamed them, total strangers, for being an obstacle for my desire to perform good magic. And the more frustration I displayed, the more they laughed. And it showed me how ridiculous my thoughts had been. I had kept the piece in the act because “they want to see it”. Of course they didn’t. They wanted to see a good performance. And when it comes to the definition of a “good performance” I can only rely on my own opinions. Therefore, I say that it is useless to care about what the audience want to see. It is much more interesting, for me as an artist, to create something that I want to show them. The magic should be meaningful to the magician. That is the most important bit, and nothing else matters much. It is pointless to design effects to be meaningful for the audience, because since you are not them, so you’ll just be guessing anyway. And guessing is not as good as knowing.
Effect classifications
A while back Jon Racherbaumer posed a theoretical question to a bunch of people regarding how a few specific effects should be categorized in a Fitzkee-like list of
I can only see one occasion where it would have some value to categorize effects into a limited number of groups - and that is if you do it yourself, independent of others, as an exercise. And then, the value would lie in the work and the thought process, not the finished result.
And as I might have mentioned before, if reductionism is the game, why stop at 47, 22, 16 or 10? Animation can be folded into transformation. Nine categories left. Teleportation can be folded into a vanish and a production. Eight categories left. Restoration can be folded into Transformation. Seven left. Vanish, production, levitation, escapology, prediction, transformation and penetration can all be folded into “Manipulation of the time-space continuum”. And since most people still are pre-Einstein in how they interpret the world, the final category would need to be simplified further to make sense. Leaving us with something like: “Something strange happens!” And, of course, now it is quite easy to fit both Chinese Sticks and Card Locations into the category “Something strange happens!” But I don’t believe it fills any purpose to do so. Not with one single category. Neither with 9-10 categories. Magic should not be reduced like that, because I believe it is harmful to the creativity. To illustrate, here’s a few different effects that are difficult to list in the standard listing of base effects. 1: “My presence is draining the life force from everything nearby.” A flower withers as my shadow pass over it. 2: “Thanks to the second law of thermodynamic, I can divert energy from one place to another.” I grab a spoon and a flower. The spoon gets soft and bends, as the flower withers into dust.
Fuzzy Logic :: 10
3: “I can force time to move faster” A fresh flower is shown, then I speed up the time, so that the flower rapidly withers into dust. 4: “I can hypnotize you, leave you here for two weeks, and when I wake you, you will not know that any time has passed”. The spectator closes his eyes, and when he opens them, the flowers in front of him has withered. 5... travel backwards in time, and a withered flower suddenly becomes fresh 6... a mystic spell that resurrect dead things, a withered flower gets fresh and alive. 7... I have a flower, and draw a picture of it with my magic pen, causing a sympathetic link. Then, as I burn the drawing, the flower dies. -”May I draw your picture now?” 8... etc. etc. None of these ideas would have emerged, if I had started out with a list of basic effects.
Camera Gag
This will not make much sense to a young audience. I usually have a 35mm roll of photographic film in my case. So I can palm it easily, if I want to. Whenever I notice that someone is about to take a picture, I steal the roll of film. After the picture is taken, I go out and take the camera. The roll is loaded behind the camera. -”Let me see those pictures!”, I say, then I pull out the film, as if I pulled it out from inside the camera. Even funnier with a digital camera.
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Fuzzy Logic Copyright (text & illustrations), Tom Stone 2009. Copyright (choreography) Tom Stone 2009. Copyright (design of props) Tom Stone 2009. The immaterial moral rights will be enforced. Performing rights of choreography and script documented here is tied to the legal ownership of this manuscript. Rights to build and use the props documented here is granted for personal use alone. Commercial manufacturing rights are reserved, but can be aquired by contacting the author.
Tom Stone-Bengtsson Domarebacken 42 145 57 Norsborg Sweden Email:
[email protected] http://shop.tomstone.se
