Dear Friends in Magic,
There are a few phrases in magic so familiar, that the moment they’re spoken, the mystery begins to disappear. We’ve all used them. We’ve all heard them. And if we’re honest, we’ve all felt that subtle shift when an audience leans back instead of leaning in. In this Museletter, Mystery School Instructor Frank Zazanis invites us to take a hard look at one of the most common.
The Uphill Battle Of Pick A Card, Any Card
“Oh, I’ve seen this trick before,” the well-dressed person at your corporate strolling gig says, and with righteous indignation you think to yourself, ‘No you haven’t, I just came up with this variation on the ambitious card to pepper mill yesterday.’ You are frustrated with them for assuming they knew what was going to happen, but can we blame them if the first words out of our mouth were the familiar “Pick a card, any card?”
Let’s try a little experiment: What comes to your mind when you see the following phrases:
A long time ago in a galaxy…
It was the best of times…
Space, the final frontier…
A spool of yellow cotton thread…
The way you most likely finished some, if not all, of those sentences (if not, as Max Maven said, you need to get out less) is exactly the same way people finish what they think is coming next after “Pick a card, any card.” They think it is the same trick their friend from school, their uncle, or—hopefully not, but possibly—someone less practiced in the art of magic showed them, and they liked it, tolerated it, or hated it. Regardless, we are fighting an uphill battle every time we use that line.
I think we owe it to our participants, the art as a whole, and ourselves to give it just a bit more effort. If we really want to give them a magical experience, perhaps we should start with something magical. I can hear you now asking me, “But Frank, I like doing this card trick. You’re not going to ask me to stop doing it, right?” Right, I am not going to ask you to stop doing the routine. I would never dream of asking a fellow magician to stop doing card tricks—that would be the impossible dream indeed.
I am simply going to invite you to change how it starts. If we spend just a few minutes brainstorming the possibilities that can be used instead of asking people to pick a card, any card, like a sideshow flim-flam artist (unless you, in fact, are a sideshow flim-flam artist, and in that case, please keep using the line), we will change not only our magic but, dare I hope, the world’s perception of magic as an art. A lofty goal, but one that can be achieved if we all respect ourselves and our art just a little bit more. It will eventually change.
Here are some examples of ways to have a card selected that don’t sound like someone’s uncle who knows one trick:
“When you look at what I have in my hands, you may see a simple deck of cards, and it may be exactly that, but what I see is 52 unique possibilities that will lead us down a brief magical adventure. Would you take just one of these possibilities to begin this adventure?”
“You know, people say that card tricks are boring, especially the way my Uncle Todd used to do them. I don’t do card tricks; I create moments of magic with these portable pasteboards of power. I’d like to create a moment like that for us. In order to do that, we need one of you to be the star of this moment, and I need you to choose one of these to represent you.”
“I’m going to show you something amazing using a stack of bowling balls. Oh, I guess I forgot to pack those. Well, I can do the same thing with these, and my insurance won’t go through the roof. Please take one of these flat, rectangular bowling balls so we can get on with it.”
“Look at all of these options you have to start a minor miracle with. Point to whichever of these seems the most miraculous to you.”
Now, I know these particular lines may not suit you and who you are on stage or when strolling about your corporate gig, but hopefully they are a starting point for you to create your own.
Each introduction we do to every effect we perform is absolutely critical to the experience we create. How would you want your magic to be remembered? That all begins with the first thing you utter at the moment you approach a group or walk on, but it is heightened by the introduction to the effect and the action you wish the participant to take.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with to replace “Pick a card, any card.” Now please go write a line, any line, and go forth and change the world, one piece of magic at a time.
Frank Zazanis (Franklin Williams)