I saw this a little while ago but for reasons of health, both mental and physical I didn’t actually post it here yet.
This may be the best magic trick I have ever seen.
My general opinion of Instagram/TikTok magicians is… Not great. I’m sure they get lots of clicks or likes or views or whatever metric the algorithm has them chasing now, but ultimately I fear that the constraints of the platform along with the advantages of the camera have slowly massaged a lot of magicians into performing a certain type of highly angle sensitive, quick, attention grabbing effects.
The demands of the algorithm, often needing daily content, force a kind of unscripted “Look at this!” Presentation as well as a need to either constantly re-skin existing effects or purchase whole new equipment on a treadmill of novelty¹.
Frankly being a magician in that space seems like it really sucks, and I can only imagine folk do it in the hope that it will lead to something, anything else².
But then there’s Jeki Yoo, the ONLY magician I follow on Instagram³. Jeki has equipped himself with an arsenal of utility methods for concealing, stealing ditching and switching objects in his studio which he can use along with utility props in order to keep generating new routines and new material without having to buy the same tricks as everyone else.
Meanwhile he combines his own methods with classic working effects to revitalise and re-present them in his own style.
As time goes on he adds extra utility methods to his routines, such as the optical illusion like stack of picture frames and the clever sucker-trick peek behind the curtain of performing with a camera looking up from under the table. The latter is particularly clever because you would expect that angle to reveal some part of the method, but he subtly alters the routine to fool from below as well.
Honestly he’s kind of a genius and I love his work. This clip here though, this is really really ingenious. I love me some topological rope magic, but it’s hard to make sense of it for an audience. Rope, as a prop, is no longer something that people see very often, and so it introduces a layer of separation from the spectators’ reality. The conversion of a loose knot to a loop of cord is a well known idea of Flip Hallema’s, and was remade using string as Strange-Os by Paul Harris in the Art of Astonishment.
The usage of a surgical mask however raises the stakes in such a powerful way. Consider:
- It uses an unaltered mask
- You can do it with the mask you’re wearing.
- The loop produced is an elasticated hair tie.
- Which you could give away because it is totally unaltered.
- The trick fulfills Henning Nelms Ham Sandwich Law, in that by the logic of the trick it tightens the mask strap, and since 2020 everyone on Earth knows the pain of a poorly fitted mask.
Just for once it’s nice to write about something which I don’t hate.
¹ This increased demand for gimmick heavy, impractical, but bulletproof camera safe tricks has caused something of a market shift in the world of magic, leading to a renewed surge of tricks which will enter the working repertoire of absolutely no one but make up 15 seconds of a great many show reels. Frankly you might as well deep-fake your face onto the effect’s trailer for all the individuality they represent.
² And anything else seems to often mean pivoting into the kind of garbage content where you and all your friends produce 10 minute click-bait videos for facebook where you make sangria in a toilet or throw a foil wrapped watermelon full of detergent into a fire and reveal by means of an unconvincing jump cut near the end that a diamond formed in the middle!
³ Though to be fair I mostly use instagram to post photos of my dog and look at photos of other people’s dogs.