For those curious as to the explanations of the many tools at the disposal of the magician for accomplishing miracles, this is not one of them. But very interesting nonetheless.
Knowing things in your heart
It's a shocking thing when you start to ponder a question silently to yourself, wondering if anyone knows the answer, and a few days later, someone in your RSS feed points you to a four-part video series answering it. I was thinking about scripture and how most people today agree that scripture is a mixed bag. Some of it is true in the literal sense and other parts are vaguely metaphorically poetically true, in the sense that the play Romeo and Juliet can teach us "truths" about the human condition and maybe even inform our decision making about how to lead more prosperous lives even though the events in the play are themselves fictional.
Side note: the problem with this point of view is that once you admit that, you acknowledge the necessity of turning to an outside source for determining which parts are which (usually the scientific method) then you can dispense with the scripture entirely and still be just as well off when it comes to knowing how the world actually works.
I was especially curious about the phrase "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" (Exodus 9:12) which had popped up a few times in different places. The problem seems to be that it implies that our hearts make choices, and not our brains as modern science teaches us. And I was extremely curious to know if the authors of these books actually believed what they were writing as literally true or if they were using the word heart as a vague substitute for soul or personality in general, since that tradition continues linguistically to this day.
Enter TruthSurge to answer for me. I was hoping the answer would be vague and open to interpretation, but it seems crystal clear. These authors had no clue whatsoever that the brain was the part of the body that did the thinky bits. Go ahead and take a look:
h/t Friendly Atheist.
Strange Wagers
In a recent Veritasium video, Derek Muller can be seen accosting Australians in the street and giving away money (almost) and they turn him down. The video itself is really interesting and you should watch it and see if you feel the same was as the people he's talking to.
The strange feature this highlights is that the human mind is woefully inadequate when it comes to assessing probability and risk. Even though the arithmetic for assessing whether or not his bet is straightforward enough to be carried by an elementary school students who has a decent handle on fractions, there are instincts at work behind your eyes consistently pushing you away from the right answer.
One of the most interesting secrets in magic involves exploiting people's inability to accurately assess risk. Risk is not linearly additive (when you put two risks together, you don't wind up with one single risk which is twice as big) so it runs afoul of our mental bookkeeping.
There are a surprising number of tricks which either derive their method (or at least their drama and impressiveness) from disguising risk. Most magic tricks require a chain of events to unfold in exactly the right way in order to work. One weak link - one mistake - and the whole thing allegedly falls apart. It turns out not to be as true you would at first believe. When you see a trick where there are lots of choices — he could have opened the book to a different page, he could have thought of a different number, he could have chosen a different key to the locked box —that means there are lots of chances for things to go wrong. In reality what that usually means is that most of those choices don't matter; they don't affect the outcome of the trick in any meaningful way. On top of that, a little bit of acting can make just about any risk seem slightly larger than it actually is
There was a great Canadian sleight of hand performer, Martin Nash, who famously said:
If you want to perform miracles, you have to be willing to take risks.
The British impossibilist David Berglas said something similar but he's not Canadian, so there.
Unfortunately, they only way around this cognitive shortcoming seems to be formal training. You need to sit down with a teacher or a textbook and have someone walk you through the math step by step (this could be something like a statistics or a finance course). Then the most important part is to put the instinct on hold and to thoughtfully work through the math so you don't accidentally deceive yourself.*
*Unless you're in the audience at a magic show, then by all means let your intuition run wild. That's what we're here for.
Last bit of Prezels
One last piece of magic for Wendy's #ExpectToBeAmazed campaign.
I'm actually facing a second camera which is supposed to have an extreme close up of my hands so you can actually see the coins. Not sure what happened to that footage. Oh well.
And remember, actually visit the Wendy's Canada Facebook Page to enter to win a trip for two to Las Vegas.
Wendy's Magic
Back in June, along with several other magicians, I was asked to film a series of short pieces to help promote a new product being introduced by Wendy's Canada - the Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger. Tied in with the magic is the chance to win a trip to Las Vegas. This was originally intended to be a project using faked magic (actors performing with camera tricks) but instead Wendy's opted for real magicians performing with no trick photography. Everything was shot continuously in one take (although there are multiple camera angles for better visibility). The result was the online ad campaign Expect to be Amazed.
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The hardest part of the project is the name: try saying "Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger" over over again - it's hard to say on camera, and I don't think any of us got it right in less than three takes.
Now that the product has been launched, the videos that were shot here in Toronto are being released one by one every few days through Wendy's Canada's Facebook page and YouTube Channel. You can watch my performances along with Mike Segal (Canada's Magician of the Year) and David "Baldini" Grossfield. More are coming, so follow and like to see them all.
And of course, get yourself to a Wendy's so you can try the Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburgerbefore they all disappear.
Part 1: An Empty Paper Bag
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XZhR3G5WQA&w=560&h=315]
Part 2: The Cups & Balls
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhYpg9vIkDs&w=560&h=315]
A bit of bootleg footage
Last year, my show Lies, Damn Lies & Magic Tricks was in the Summerworks Performance Festival at the Scotiabank Studio Theatre. As an experiment, we included an announcement at the beginning of the show along with the cell phone notice saying "non-flash photography is permitted, weird stuff will happen and it belongs on YouTube and Facebook" just to see what would happen. Now, eight months later, someone DropBoxed me a the video they shot of a portion of the show from the audience.
I don't actually have all that much video of my performances and I'm always happy to see it. So even though this is (formerly) unauthorized footage, I'll share it, so that if there's anyone else out there who has something stashed away, perhaps they'll share it.
This remains one of my favourite tricks that I've ever performed. Those of you who have seen more recent versions of it know that I've changed the story from "waiting in a hotel bar" to "waiting in an airport lounge" proving that either my memory is getting progressively worse or I'm a better liar than ever.