This weekend was pretty fun, albeit not as filled with magic as I had hoped. A record heat wave swept through my area, and wouldn't you know it, my A/C decided this year would be a great time to stop working. It's been in the mid-80's indoors all weekend and not a fan in sight. Fan-tastic. Though, I did get a chance to take the kids to the swimming pool, but let's be honest -- that doesn't make it any less hot.

I'm still working on the David Blaine course, it's going pretty well though I'm still going day-by-day. I was ahead by a few days earlier in the week, but time caught up with me and now I keep getting the "oh hey, the thing's due tonight" reminders, so unless I catch a break, I'll likely fall behind by a day or two eventually. It really is a great course still, though the last few lessons weren't as experienced-friendly as the first few. We're coming to the end of the card magic portion of it right now so the next batch of lessons might be completely new to me!

Oh, yeah, by the way -- I completed two magic treasure hunts on Saturday!

One treasure hunt was for False Anchors by Ryan Schlutz, the other was put on by @magic_alon... I'm not sure if it was sponsored by Ellusionist or not (Alon's an ambassador for them, so he gets sweet deals and coupon codes to give out).

False Anchors V3 Treasure Hunt

This treasure hunt is still technically live, so I'm not going to spoil too much for it here. However, it all starts with the False Anchors V3 deck.

The deck itself was funded via a Kickstarter campaign back in 2021 and it's full of a lot of great secrets, as far as decks go. One of them, if you have a keen enough eye, is the location of the beginning of a treasure hunt! My oh my!

I didn't know about the campaign -- whatever Kickstarter uses for their algorithm decided not to show me this one. I also didn't know about "False Anchors" until August of 2021, which was after this campaign had ended. It would've been nice to be in the loop a little earlier, but that's life I guess. Anyways, I received the deck later via the aftermarket, I think earlier this year (2022) if I recall correctly. I've checked my order history and can't find a record of the purchase... and yet, I have the deck so who knows.

I had opened the deck when I received it but didn't pay attention to it much. I just noted the awesome gaff cards and knew I'd come back to it in the near future. However, last week I received a giveaway reward from him, and it included that deck and 5 others! But yeah, back to the treasure hunt =P

I grabbed my already-opened V3 (instead of the new one) and started going through it to see how it would do with pictures for a good thank-you post. And then I noticed something special about one of the court cards. It looked... different. So, I looked at another court and it also had something different on it. I found they were almost all different (later, after looking better, they all were different)!

That was a clue to the next, or first, location of the hunt which pointed to another location, and then another. There were many puzzles and tricks one after another until finally I crossed the finish line!

I do want to be fully transparent in that I had asked Ryan on IG on two of the questions if I was on the right path because I was getting nowhere fast and he gave me helpful yes and no answers. Never a direct "here's how you solve it," but a confirmation that I was right or wrong and it was more than helpful.

Given my engineering background and participation in a lot of security-oriented "treasure hunts" (typically called "capture the flags"), I approach these with a much different and more security-trained eye. Ironically, after I had gotten into the hang of the non-security puzzles, I got stumped for a while on one that was 100% in my wheelhouse. This was one of the "hey, am I on the right path?" questions I asked and when I got the "yes", I immediately knew I needed to bring out my normal toolkit and a minute later, I had the answer!

This hunt was a blast, I can't lie. It covered so much and was quite long. Some of the puzzles were easy, some were hard. The way that you "enter" into it with the cards though, I absolutely love that idea and will always remember it. Amazing job with it Ryan!

@magic_alon Treasure Hunt

A few weeks ago, @magic_alon started posting some whacky posts. Not his normal whacky magic videos, but rather static images that had a map... or a pin... or numbers? Long-story-short, he's been hinting at a treasure hunt for about a month, hoping to drum up interest throughout the community.

I'd like to think it worked, there were a decent number of people participating in it when it launched on Friday, May 20th!

I was still in the middle of the False Anchors treasure hunt, so I didn't think I'd be able to participate in Alon's. His was more of a "first to finish" that everyone knew about and I didn't want to interrupt my current puzzle flow. However, I was stumped on one of the FA puzzles, so I decided to give it a go.

A few minutes later, a clue on Alon's hunt brought me to a private IG account where the next clue was waiting... except, the owner was asleep (and the account was supposed to be public). Yay!

Jumping forward to Saturday, I had cracked the False Anchors final puzzle already and decided to hop back over to Alon's and that private account was open! I grabbed clue after clue and... got stuck.

I came to a website that required a password and had no idea what the next step was. There wasn't a clue as to what the password was. I tried a handful of guesses (more like 50) but nothing worked. I stared and stared at all I had, and then it hit me. The image so cleverly named as "random image that you don't need" wasn't only needed, it was the answer. Rather, it pointed to the answer.

I don't want to give away info about the puzzles themselves as it's still open to participate in, but they were fun and though I did get stuck on one, they weren't overly difficult. A minute or two of thought was all that was required =]

I wasn't the first to finish the race, however, I was the first from the Instagram audience to finish and was told that I won a prize! $150 in downloads, no less! At the time of this writing, I haven't received any additional information about this yet, but I had fun during the hunt and met a few new folks along the way.

So there I was, standing at the edge of my computer desk. It's a standing desk, but also the main surface I practice card magic on. This time, however, it wasn't meant for practice -- there was a webcam pointed at me and in just a few seconds, Blaise Serra, Jeremy Griffith and one or two other magicians were going to pull me into the live stream, and I would perform magic live!

The Routine

All performers were given 5 minutes to do their act, and we'd be judged on a few criteria like originality, personality, and the magic effect itself.

When performing a routine for Instagram, my cutoff is 1 minute. I know I can make IGTV videos that go longer, or do an Instagram Live which can be super long, but I go for that 60-second cutoff because it's what you do =P. 5 minutes? Whoa, I could do anything!

I really wanted to do something special though, so I thought of doing a routine I had been practicing recently. It's my version of The Kaplan Torn and Restored Card routine by George Kaplan, found in The Fine Art of Magic.

The original effect itself is easier to describe, so it's like this:

My whole act for this routine is designed around the premise of a torn card being dropped into an envelope and coming back out whole -- with a string running through it. But, to make it a little more entertaining I first talk about when I was a kid and wanted to get into magic, I really wanted, no needed a magic top hat.

"My mom wouldn't get one for me though and insisted I just used my baseball cap instead. The problem was, a top hat was needed to pull out a live bunny. Using a baseball cap, whenever I tried, I just pulled out a picture of a bunny instead." I then reach my hand into the empty baseball cap and pulled on a small envelope with a bunny drawn on it. *magic*

Tossing the hat aside, I say that sometimes it's paper, sometimes envelopes, once it was even a $5 bill. Monopoly money though, so not as great as you'd hope. But whatever came out with that bunny on it would have extra magical properties that would last for a few minutes, it was neat. To demonstrate, I want to attach a leash to my new pet bunny, so I take a small knife and make a slit where you'd normally attach a leash... if it were real... and strung a piece of yarn through it. I show that the yarn goes all the way through the envelope and even pull some out of the middle. No funny business, just your everyday yarn leash on a paper bunny. "The leash is so he doesn't run away while I do the actual magic trick."

I reach back into the baseball cap and produce a deck of cards. No bunny though...

From the deck, a card is selected and torn to pieces. The spectator takes a piece and holds on to it, the rest are "cabbage" for the bunny to eat -- they're dropped into the envelope and it's sealed. Yada, yada, yada, the envelope is torn open and a whole card is pulled out -- string attached and everything! Except one piece is missing, and the piece the spectator's holding matches it perfectly! *magic*

The Performance

Wouldn't it be awesome if performing a magic trick went exactly as planned? I practiced the whole routine -- further adapted to work with a remote audience -- for a week straight. The reproduction of the card isn't really rocket science, but I went through a full deck of 52 cards (and envelopes) practicing it anyways. I got the entire performance down to about 4 minutes and 30 seconds, which would give me time for delays or to repeat things.

Oh, yeah, right so this was also my first live performance for any type of magic competition. Before this, I've shown family and one or two friends things before and that was it. Yikes!

So there I was, standing at the edge of my computer desk. The edge is important because if you know anything about how producing things from hats works, well, yeah. If you don't know, well, just imagine that said things are right below the edge =P

Unfortunately, I was so excited (or nervous) that while I was introducing the magic baseball cap, I knocked down my entire under-desk setup. There would be no way to reset -- that entire bit was killed. There was no production from the hat. There was no magic bunny story, or bunny at all.

Luckily, I had anticipated the possibility and had a spare envelope ready that didn't have a bunny on it and I went with an improved "well, baseball caps aren't magical, so I went with envelopes instead -- they're easier for people to put cash in!" It was cheesy and not magical, but I never stopped the tempo. I picked up the deck of cards from the floor while talking, an action I don't think anyone really paid attention to so that was good.

The rest of the routine went smoothly. String through envelope, card selected, card destroyed. Card restored. magic

Though, we did run into video delays during the card selection. I was doing a dribble "say stop" selection and even when dribbling slow, the "stop" would always come through by the time the dribble ended. It took 4 tries, I think? If you know how a torn-and-restored effect works, you need a specific card. Do you know how fun it was to force a card in the middle of a deck during multiple dribbles?

But I kept the tempo! The act went on, I carried my personality throughout it, and I had fun with it. I didn't win that round (or even come close to winning), but hey, when you're not good you're not good =P

The Lesson(s)

You know what I felt after my 5 minutes was up? I felt like I had just talked for 5 minutes to show a 30 second magic trick. I can only imagine how the other people watching thought -- "he really strung that one out" or "wow, he must have thought he needed to use the whole 5 minutes"

I am confident (to a point) with the routines I want to show people. I know that there's always a chance I mess up or something goes wrong, but that's what practice is for. That's what outs are for. I always make it a point to at least try to know the different ways a routine can fail so that I can keep things going and make it still appear like it worked -- even if it's improv. However, I failed at it this time around... even though I had the outs.

I took a 5-minute routine that had several magical moments and turned it into a 5 minute routine with a single magical moment at the end. And though the tempo remained, the story was disconnected. What did a magical baseball cap have to do with a card being pulled out of an envelope with a string on it? Ugh.

No, what I should have done when I dropped everything was just done a different routine. I knew there was a possibility that the things would fall and if they did, I had a backup blank envelope. I should have had something else that the hat could have been used for. Or, incorporated it later into the routine itself.

Also, the card selection. I really love DaOrtiz's saying that the trick doesn't start until after the card is selected. In a dribble force, more often than not even when it's an in-person presentation, the first dribble isn't the real one. It's the demo with an "I'm going to drop the cards like this, and you just say stop whenever you want," and then the force is made on the second one. In a remote performance, there aren't many ways to have the spectator select a card. I'm not really good with the spectator peek yet, I've never really practiced it, so I'm not comfortable with that. But a dribble force? I can do that thing all day long. Except, when the video lags. I've thought of a good "remote" out with that, after the second dribble if it doesn't work, just say "here, we'll just take a card from the middle" and spread the cards to do a classic force on yourself. If you make it look like it doesn't matter, the spectator won't think it matters.

I really did have fun with the competition though. It sucked that I lost because of a prop issue, but at least I'll know better for next time!

It's Monday and you know what that means... Monday Mail Call!

Each Monday (give or take), I use this feature to highlight a few of the things that have made their way in over the past week or so. Packages, purchases, and emails -- oh my!

A few weeks late, but this month's copy of Genii finally arrived! I was finally caught up enough with my other readings that I've been able to dive into it the last two mornings with my coffee, it's a pretty good read. The main feature of the month is of Randy Pitchford's purchase of The Magic Castle. It gives great background on the history of The Castle and the potential that it may have closed for good. Pitchford stepped up and is now the sole owner, protecting the building and all it stands for. I can't wait to visit one day!

There's also a second feature about the history of Story Decks (think "Sam the Bellhop", except with actual pictures on the decks... but also Sam the Bellhop). Coincidentally, I've created a few story decks in the past year alone, and I am working on one right now for the Super Flower Blood Moon that was last night (the 15th). They're not full decks, but a few cards that tell a story. It's pretty cool to see that these ideas have existing for a really long time, and there are a lot of different ways to present them too.

Up next is a an awesome delivery, it's a half brick of False Anchors decks! Ryan Schlutz held a giveaway contest on Instagram (@falseanchors) and my entry won!! I knew that the giveaway prize was a half-brick, but I didn't expect it to be the False Anchors Collection Bundle (I thought it would just be 6 V3 Standard Editions or something similar). When I opened the box and saw a really, really nice half-brick box I had my first phase of shock. Opening the magnetic clasp on that and seeing different decks inside, whoah!

All in all, the prize includes False Anchors V1, V2, and V3 Standard Edition decks. It also includes a False Anchors V3 Special Edition deck, a Gilded V3 deck, and one Unanchored Standard Edition deck! I am so happy for these. Thank you again Ryan, this is unbelievable (^_^)

To wrap up the deliveries of the week are The Neat Review - Issue Four and Double Lift, both from The Neat Review (and Double Lift is also by Andrew Frost, i.e. @sleightlyobsessed). I received Issue Four as part of the one-year subscription, so there will be two more coming after this one too.

I am a very big fan of the books that Neat Review's put out so far, so I did buy these two semi-blindly, almost at fanboy level. Sadly, I also haven't opened either of them yet. Rather, I've taken them out of their wrappings, but I haven't read anything in them yet. My queue is still backed up and these are in it, but I just haven't gotten there yet. If Issue Four is anything like the first three though, it'll be well worth the wait. Though, I don't really know what to expect with Double Lift. The idea's right there in the title, but... well, we'll see =]

Magazines, books, and decks -- the week couldn't have gone better! Though, are Neat Review issues books, or magazines? They're softcover, and more artsy than wordsy... but Neat Review does say "Books by Neat Review" so maybe they're books? I've considered them thick magazines until recently. I still consider them magazines actually, I'm just confused as to why they're referred to as books =P. Either way, I'm going to read them and love them all the same <3

Stay tuned for the next iteration of Monday Mail Call, there's a lot more to come!

Oh also, if you'd like to offer suggestions for books, tricks, decks or if you have questions about magic (performing, routines, sleights, etc.), just reach out here.

A few weeks ago, some friends shared a link to this "Studio" website, but that wasn't what caught my eye. It was the title: David Blaine Teaches Magic

I thought it was clickbait at first, there's no way David Blaine was going to teach magic. Right? tl;dr, it's legit!

After very little research, I signed up stupid-fast... I even ordered the recommended handcuffs because why not! I very impatiently counted down to May 9th -- this past Monday -- when the course was to kick off.

Expectations

The course is taught by David Blaine, Asi Wind, and Steve Cuiffo. It's 30 days long and covers magic across several areas including cards, coins, and even gags. This answer to a FAQ was what set my expectations though:

Ah, so this is going to be super beginner-level stuff. Well, at least I'll get to hear some presentation ideas from Blaine, right?

On Day 1, we also got to meet our peer group. Including myself and Blaine (who in this case is like Tom from MySpace), there are 20 of us in the peer group. I looked at everyone's bio and all but 3 of us have any prior magic experience. Everyone else has a description like "always loved David Blaine, can't wait to see his secrets!" and "never done magic, but always wanted to try".

This is great that so many people are interested in magic! But if seeing 17 people who have no magic experience, in a group of 20, signed up to take a magic course makes me really think that this is the kind of magic you'd find in one of those box-sets your grandma gets you for Christmas.

First Impression

I'm just going to jump right to it, but holy hell was my expectation wrong.

The first lesson is about Key Cards. Okay, yes. Key Cards are very basic, I know. But in 23 minutes, Blaine, Asi, and Steve not only explain how to use a key card, but how to catch glimpses, how to psychologically force a glimpse, and they even cover the Breather Crimp when diving into Pit Hartling's Finger Flicker routine (with his permission).

A Breather Crimp is not beginner material, in my opinion.

But wait, there's more -- in Lesson 1 still! There's an "advanced key card" video after the first where they cover the Gilbreath Principle -- but actually let us know that it's way older than Gilbreath, which I didn't know! -- and how to use moisture for key cards. Need I repeat, holy hell.

I'm not going to lie, I was hooked immediately.

The second lesson was Improvisational Magic & Bets, so a bit away from cards and more towards things you'd do at a bar or just hanging out with friends using everyday items. Now, I'm normally just a card magician. I love (almost) all forms of magic, but I don't really practice any. I've skimmed the Tarbell series and other books that cover plenty of topics that aren't cards, but I just haven't done anything with them. The material in this lesson was like gold. I couldn't get enough of it.

A napkin routine. Like, a paper napkin. A few coin routines. Heck, even rolling up dollar bills. These were 100% routines I could practice for just a few minutes and be able to perform sufficiently enough for any crowd, and yet they were still very magical. I absolutely loved this one and will be re-watching it to pick up any extra notes or tips that I've missed.

And yes, there is a vast amount of "magic experience" that these three guys are brain-dumping during these lessons. It's not just a "you get a glimpse of the card, place it on top of the selection, and later you can find the selection." Oh no, they go into it and then jam some more on camera and end up showing 10 different ways to do the same routine.

Next Up

My goodness, can you tell that I'm excited to go on? After each lesson there is a "project" where you're supposed to upload a video of you performing what you've learned for someone, or you can write about it instead of making a video too. It's pretty cool to see so many people doing the same routines, but each slightly different than the other. And the community is really friendly and helpful so far. I'm not exactly sure what the point of the "peer group" is, all of the people interacting with my content, and the content I'm interacting with, is for people outside of my peer group. But hey, there are people and we're all hanging out learning the same stuff!

I'm also waiting for my decks of cards. I was one of the first 10,000 users that signed up (no idea how many in total did) so I was able to claim decks that were supposed to come but the mailbox is still deck-less. Soon though, right?

Each lesson has a "due date" attached, mostly so there is a defined end-date. I'm ahead by a few days and will likely keep up the pace. If anything stands out super-crazy, I'll write about it specifically on the site, but do expect a full review after the course is over too =]

Product marketing is a skill. There's no denying it. Some companies do it extremely well, others are rather meh. And then there are the average companies that out of nowhere do something pretty amazing.

Vanishing Inc. just did that something amazing with the new release by Harapan Ong, Opticks.

The lead up to the release of Opticks was fairly normal, in my opinion. They put out an ad or two for it and they announced it a week or two before its release on social media. So far, so good. Though, they did kick it off with a cool giveaway promo, which I really loved.

#HaraFam Giveaway

Vanishing Inc. made a post on their IG Account (@vanishingincmagic) that announced a chance to win a free copy of Opticks:

There may have been other promotions for it too, but this is the one I saw. The post directed everyone to the Opticks product page which showed a "coming soon" countdown and a place to sign-up for a launch notice. If you signed up, you got a free copy of Filter Triumph, a routine that is included in Opticks. You also received instructions on how to enter-to-win the whole thing for free too!

It was simple -- they provided a photo of Harapan, and you had to put yourself in it. Photoshop, MS Paint, heck even printing it out and gluing a photo of you on top would count. Then, post it to IG and tag them. So basically, just post a selfie and tag Vanishing Inc. to help promote the Opticks release.

I've seen two other giveaways like this in the past, one by Alex Pandrea (@alexpandrea) and one by Ryan Schlutz (@falseanchors). I actually won the one by Pandrea and got the entire Svngali box set from it! When I saw the one from Vanishing Inc., I knew right away I was going to enter. And so, I did:

I didn't win though, unfortunately. They took their sweet time letting us know that they quietly let the random person who won know. We, the public, still don't know who it is though so as far as I'm concerned, nobody won. It's very anti-social-media to not tag the winner... makes me think that it was just a scam.

Oh well. I had fun making the pic anyways though.

Account Takeover

So yeah, Opticks released on Friday (May 6th) and I picked it up as soon as I learned I didn't win the giveaway. The physical box of goodies shipped same day too, so that was nice. I watched two of the videos from it Friday night and was pretty happy.

And then, Saturday came. I picked up my phone in the morning and had a push notification from Vanishing Inc.'s IG account... with a new avatar?!

Whoah, what is this?! I went to check it out and laughed pretty hard -- Harapan Ong hacked Vanishing Inc.'s account and was staging a full takeover!

Obviously, it was a joke to help promote Opticks, but it was done very, very nicely. It was organic. It was interactive and engaging. And more importantly, it was Harapan.

He answered tons of questions in the account's story and gave some cool info about the project overall. He even did 3 IG Lives over the weekend which were dope.

The optics this presented were spectacular. Oh, I see what they did there!