The Jerx – JAMM #5

CONTENTS

Any Man Behind Any Curtain…………3

X-Communication: Smurf Job

Special Edition………………………………..10

Good St. Anthony………………………….. 16

Coming in The JAMM #5

Any Man Behind Any Curtain

One of my ideas that is least loved by the magic community is that you should shift the focus of the effect off of yourself and your supposed powers. The primary benefit of this is presentational. If your performance style boils down to, “I’m a magician!” or “Look what I can do!” it’s hard for that to come off as anything but childish. And it’s all too easily dismissed. However if your performance style boils down to, “Look at this interesting thing,” or “Huh… strange… what do you make of this?” then you’re treating something weird not with patter or jokes or with a flourish and a “ta-daa!” Instead you’re treating something weird as you might actually treat something weird in real life, and people feel that. This is a fairly easy change to implement, but it’s not a minor change at all. It’s a pretty fundamental change in how you might choose to present your magic.

And even when people completely understand it’s a theatrical/”fake” experience, the fact that there’s not an inherent neediness or show-off-iness to the presentation makes it an easier and more enjoyable pill to swallow and they’ll want to play along more

Recently I’ve also begun exploring the benefits this approach has methodologically as well. One of my first explorations into this idea will be in The JAMM #5. It’s called Any Man Behind Any Curtain and it’s a version of ACAAN. The effect itself is fairly standard. But the interesting thing about this version is that it only works if you don’t take credit for the magic. You need to present yourself as a witness to the magic, not the person behind it, or it completely falls apart.

This effect is really a “proof of concept” of an idea I think we may be able to take in some interesting directions in the future.

Good St. Anthony

Good St. Anthony started as a card location. Then, as time passed, it evolved into a design duplication, then a divinely inspired prediction. And now it is something of a combination of all those things.

And while the evolution of the effect might interest magicians, the trick itself is very unusual and appealing to laypeople. Much of it takes place in complete darkness.

But unlike most of the times you’ve tried to “make magic” in the dark, this one will leave the other person completely satisfied. It won’t end too soon or never get started. You won’t have to be like, “This has never happened to me before, baby, I swear. I’m sorry. I’m just tired.”