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Crowd Control
or The act that writes itself every night

Years ago I went on a course run by Wayne Goodman on how to work a restaurant residency, and the latter half of this was actually working a restaurant, and trying to put us in the kind of situations that may arise. For example he would tell us to work a table which, unbeknownst to us, he had visited a few minutes prior and told them to refuse a performance.

I never had to face this particular fate as the table he told to reject me was so keen to see me perform that they ignored him and eagerly asked me to continue.

One challenge he set however was to approach a table and not perform a single trick until he gave us a signal. In short, we had to use the time to build rapport. We all just used the opportunity to make small talk, explain that we are magicians, just sweat it out until we could finally do the one thing which we thought gave us value as human beings.

But it needn’t have been that way.

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or The act that writes itself every night”

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Do It Yourself
or Sloppy Seconds

On October 15 2015 I attended a one day conventionette called Lost Patrons of the Mother Black Cap. It was hosted by Dave Forrest’s Full52, and was honestly the best magic event I’ve ever been to.

During that convention I saw Dave Forrest perform one of his signature effects REM. In REM a bunch of decisions are made by a spectator leaving an arrangment of items on the table, which is then revealed to match a photograph. When you buy the trick, you get a method and a photograph.

But when Dave Forrest performed it at the Lost Patrons of the Mother Black Cap, he had one extra prop which you don’t get with the effect as sold. That prop was a 2 foot by 3 foot painting of himself with the props arranged in front of him.

It was, after all, his signature effect and so while all the hobbyists bought it as trick number 237 to half heartedly perform in front of bored colleagues, Dave was closing his cabaret shows with it, and the painting was something so permanent, so hard to fake, that it left no doubt in the minds of his spectators that this prediction was as good as set in stone.

But now… I’m seeing a lot of these…

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or Sloppy Seconds”

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Angels and Demons
or The Ballad of Tyler and Nikola

I feel like I need to start this post with a disclaimer that I have met Nikola Arkane multiple times, got on just fine with her and while I don’t know her well enough to arrogantly describe her as a friend, she is an acquaintance that I have almost entirely positive feelings towards.

Which is why when I needed one, she made a perfect nemesis.

Much like my earlier post on hatred as a motivating factor, I feel like recasting a person whose success you are envious of as a villain in your head allows a much stronger drive to defeat and surpass them than any kind of aspirational idolisation might offer. It didn’t really work out¹ so I am currently nemesisless, but in the peak of her villain era there was one thing she did about 5 years ago that I really didn’t agree with, and I want to contrast and compare it to something which is happening right now, as a kind of learning exercise.

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or The Ballad of Tyler and Nikola”

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Outies
or The Severed Floor

It was pointed out to me that the effect presented in my previous post bore a striking resemblence to an effect from The Jerx.

I mean the fact that the effect is Jerx inspired should be obvious by the fact that the password for Nulanima is Jerxian but bizarrely I was actually thinking of a totally different Jerx routine at the time of writing as well as two non Jerx effects.

The differences are so important I think it’s worth revisiting briefly.

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or The Severed Floor”

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Innies
or The Overtime Contingency

I said in a previous post that I am not a fan of hypnotism. It’s probably the only kind of magic I don’t like.

Maybe also troublewit.

But there’s one kind of magic I love and that’s faux hypnotism.

The kind of trick where regular magic techniques leave you with a sense of missing time or involuntary compliance without the coercive act of actually performing hypnosis.

Of course if you don’t know the difference it might feel similarly violating, which is why I love the premise behind the TV show Severence.

Umm… Spoilers for series 1 of Severence I guess.

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or The Overtime Contingency”

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Coinkidink
or Everything’s Connected

I realised after posting it that my diagram of the Trapezoid of Professionalism might have baffled a few people, and honestly I fear the explanation may baffle some of those people even more but I think it’s important to explain none the less.

The Connection between Paul Allen and Jon Allen is pretty obvious, they share a last name and a predilection for perfection, but other than the fact that Jonny Paul has both of their names in his name, there’s no other connection to either of them, nor is he really a counterpoint to any of their common aspects.

In fact, before seeing him by chance on a random episode of The Paul Daniels Magic Show, I had never even heard of Jonny Paul, so the fact that he entered my consciousness on the same night as the Jon Allen lecture is apparently pure coincidence.

But there is something bigger going on that I didn’t really want to get into in that post, and that bigger thing is this:

Coincidences are actual magic.

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or Everything’s Connected”

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Shabbycadabra
or Let’s See Jon Allen’s Card

A couple of days ago I saw a lecture by Jon Allen. It was pretty good, lots of solid thinking, strong methods, entertaining effects, and everything he said made perfect sense… But when he explained his reasons for doing things the way he did, I continually found myself disagreeing with him.

Normally when I disagree with someone I can put my reasons into words but it wasn’t until much later that I realised what was going on in my head, and when I had this epiphany it suddenly made a lot of other things slot into place in my head, such as why I have so many props I never use.

Jon Allen is too professional.

Continue reading “Shabbycadabra
or Let’s See Jon Allen’s Card”