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Cryptonumismatism
or Confounding Sociological Infohazards

Sometimes I have to drop apparent non-sequiturs to prime readers for a topic, and the post about Tenet is one such topic. This is technically part of the series on money but it’s more a kind of primer to a totally non magical subject which doubtless came to some peoples mind’s at the moment I mentioned the yawning abyss of a cashless society. This subject is dangerous to mention online however, and I wanted to explain why that is, in a way that magicians might find helpful.

Tenet is a nice squishy example of what I call a Confounding Sociological Infohazard. Lets break that term down.

An infohazard is a science fiction concept similar to that of harmful sensation, where a sight or sound can somehow permanently harm you; not in the sense that a really bright light can blind you, more like the idea of a work of art so bizarre that can make you go insane, a song so sad it makes you walk into the ocean and drown, or a joke so funny that you instantly laugh yourself to death. An infohazard is like this except that it is a mere idea, knowledge you can’t unlearn, often framed as a fact which upends your entire worldview into a bleak existential dread from which you can never return.

A confounding infohazard is my term for what XKCD calls nerd sniping, the art of posing a question with no obvious answer but which feels like there should be a simple and elegant solution. Upon learning of the question a certain type of person will immediately spiral into a obsessive compulsion to answer it.

A confounding sociological infohazard then is a question which doesn’t affect individuals in this way, but will cause an argument when discussed, descending into visceral hatred and even eugenic ideation for those involved. As you might imagine, the internet is allowing confounding sociological infohazards to spread and mutate at a rate never previously known, as what would have once caused mild cursing across a dinner table for a single evening gets spun out into a global 24/7 screaming match, replete with slurs, factionalism, and maybe even profiteering.

But how does this work? To explain it, I need to give a few examples.

Content warning: This post contain 4 such info hazards, with increasing danger levels, which I am going to hopefully explain in enough detail that you will feel satisfied and not have to discuss them any further… but I cannot guarantee this.

Proceed with caution.

Continue reading “Cryptonumismatism
or Confounding Sociological Infohazards”
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Go hang a salami, Tenet
I’m a lasagna hog

In the pandemic, when everyone was told to stay home when possible and categorically avoid densely populated enclosed spaces, one absolute maniac decided against all odds to throw caution to the wind and release a movie with a theatrical only release, insisting that the only way to properly appreciate it was on the big screen. He asked people to line up and possibly give their lives to keep the magic of cinema (and the studio stranglehold on licensed screenings) alive.

And four months later I brought the Blu-ray because time is an illusion. You’d think he would know that, given that his previous movie Interstellar was about interacting with the past from the distant future (and also something about love and space).

The movie was Tenet and its a great example of how people go wrong in trying to construct a magic trick with a sensible causal premise.

Continue reading “Go hang a salami, Tenet
I’m a lasagna hog“

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Dolla Dolla Bills
or Die for King Money

Can we just take a minute to appreciate the United States of America. I know their government oscillates between capitalistic neoliberals and capitalistic cryptofascists, their healthcare system is designed to funnel money towards corporate health insurance, they have actual unfiltered nazis marching in the streets and bizarre fiscal loopholes allowing billionaires with more wealth than a small country to not only avoid paying tax but actually receive tax rebates courtesy of the regular citizenry… *deep breath* but damn it if their physical currency isn’t just designed from the ground up for magicians.

The dollar bill is worth so little that it’s cheaper to make a cover for an exercise book with actual money than to use that money to buy nice paper for the cover. The one, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty and one hundred dollar bill are all the same size and mostly printed in the same colours, made from a soft enough paper to fold easily and hold a nice crease. If you ask the average person on the street for a coin you are all but guaranteed to get a quarter, and there’s a statistically favourable chance that the quarter will have the design used for the majority of the 20th century, that of the eagle.

Admittedly the production of state quarters since 1999 has slightly scuppered that last point but the odds are still heavily in your favour that the person you borrow it from won’t even notice if you switch it for one which does.

God Bless America… and fuck the goddamn Royal Mint.

Continue reading “Dolla Dolla Bills
or Die for King Money”
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Going Dotty
or What’s Next

So this is the part where I call back to several other posts simultaneously into a crescendo like those parts of a musical where it turns out you can interleave all three of the main leitmotifs into one epic finale song.

This isn’t my last post¹, it just happens that I have now laid enough groundwork to start getting a little more meta.

This post also contains 3 trick reviews, which seems to be what magicians like²

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or What’s Next”

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Thinking Rings
or The Benefits of Hate

In my post about Troublewit I kind of wrote a cheque that I didn’t fully cash.

I said that by recognising and codifying the things you hate about a routine you can methodically attempt to fix those things and produce some brilliant shining original masterwork which has none of the identified problems.

I then listed out the problems of Troublewit and noted that it was unsalvageable garbage (which, don’t get me wrong, it totally is) because fixing those problems would take it so far from it’s origins that it completely morphs into an unrelated allied art or, worse still, gospel magic.

What happened to be benefits of hatred? Did I lie to you?

No. No I did not. I did however decide to split what I wrote in two because it got too damn long. This is the second half of that article, in which Stacy Saves the Linking Rings.

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or The Benefits of Hate”

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Troublewit’s end
or Feel the Hate

There’s a term used by magicians to refer to other types of performance which blend well with magic. Things like juggling, ventriloquism, quick change, balloon modelling and shadowgraphy. That term is Allied Arts

Often the allied arts will be included in a gala show at larger magic conventions and they are usually the most popular part. This may be because they are a novel diversion in a sea of magic that all starts to look the same after a while. It may also be because the things defined as allied arts are usually, but not always, overt displays of skill.

A colleague of mine once said that the difference between juggling and magic is that you can see the juggler’s hands. To put it a little more directly: jugglers can make something difficult look easy, magicians can make something easy look impossible¹.

But there’s one magic trick that has its method as clearly visible as juggling or balloon modelling, and yet refuses to be demoted to an allied art, because there’s no overt skill, very little actual skill, and only magicians seem to like it.

But not me.

I cannot fucking stand Troublewit.

Continue reading “Troublewit’s end
or Feel the Hate”

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Nervous Energy
or Casting Basic Fireballs

I was trying to explain this to a friend of mine recently over messenger and my inability to stay on topic basically fucked it up for her. Probably sounded like nonsense. I say recently… When I wrote this paragraph and some of what’s below it was still 2019 and it felt like the world would soon be my oyster, forgetting that oysters are one of the main vectors for hepatitis and sure enough we would descend into a plague.

So anyway I’m going to have a crack at explaining it now.

This is how to turn problematic nervous energy into useful performing energy, and cast a few fireballs while you’re at it. It’s worth noting that while this works for me, it won’t necessarily work for anyone else. There is always the possibility that I’m just fucked up and accidentally found a glitch in my own emotional hardware.

But hey, maybe you can break your brain too!

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or Casting Basic Fireballs”

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On the Inside of a Circle
or Bits and Pieces

I just wanted to add a few extra points about my previous statements about the circle. Bits and pieces that didn’t fit the flow of the points I was making but do have a little relevance.

Quirky side avenues like the few people who really do want to abolish the exposure rule, some examples of what happens if you break the rule, what joining the circle is like, and reasons you might want to.

After all, I’m a member of the magic circle, surely it can’t be all that bad?

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or Bits and Pieces”

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The Charmed Circle
or The Empty Safe

There’s a lovely little story in Eugene Burger’s book Magic And Meaning about an aboriginal¹ custom of going out hunting evil spirits once a year, each time taking the young boys who have come of age and are ready to face the monsters themselves. The boys must take a brave stand against the unseen creatures roaring in the distance as the group splits up, and only those brave enough to face the beast will learn that the roaring is produced by a strip of carved wood swung around on a piece of cord² by one of the elders, and there are in fact no monsters. The instruments are then burned in a great fire, leaving ash to show the creature was defeated without the lack of a corpse giving the game away³.

This could be considered the earliest form of magic, similar to the magic of Father Christmas, The Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy⁴. A magic for everyone, a secret kept by the elders but which is eventually known by all.

But of course, when we normally talk about magic, we talk about the performance of apparent miracles by secret methods known by very few. Indeed, revealing these secrets to the world at large would destroy an entire performing art, industry, and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of magicians.

Or at least, that’s the theory.

Continue reading “The Charmed Circle
or The Empty Safe”