Best Friends Forever

The BFF Mental Prediction System Pro XL

Alvo Stockman

Copyright 2008 Penguin Magic. All rights reserved.

The Effect
At a restaurant, with 3 friends, you offer a demonstration. You guys know me so well... youre three of my best friends. I want to try something interesting. Whenever we talk, a lot of times, I feel like I know what one of you is going to say before you even say it. For example, John, if I said the word barn to you, whats the first word that pops into your mind? Horse Horse, right. Well if I predicted that, it wouldnt be so impressive. A lot of people would probably say horse. What Id like to try is something a little more difficult. Im going to try to predict a chain of associations that the 3 of you will have. For example, if I said barn, John said horse, Luke said jockey, and Michael said helmet, predicting the final word helmet would be considerably harder! Im going to write down a word here, and Im going to try to start a chain of events that will end with Michael saying this word. Im going to cover it with my hand for now. Now to start off, John, whats the first word you think of, when I say blue? OR Weve known each other for a long time. And weve had some great times, havent we? Im thinking of one of those times. Im going to write down a word that reminds me specifically of that time, and I want the three of you to figure out not only what event Im thinking of, but the word that sums up that experience. Whats great about this plot is that it gets your friends to reminisce about some of the best times the four of you have had and to decide on one and a word. This elevates the mood of the group and builds rapport. 2

OR Im thinking of a time. A time that was special to the four of us. A very specific time, and I know that the three of you subconsciously know what Im talking about. Im going to write down the time here on the placemat. I want John to say a number between 1 and 12. This will be the hour. Four? Great. Now, Luke. You say a number between one and sixty. This will be the minute. Michael, AM or PM? Perfect. Do you guys remember the time we were at the beach in San Diego and played volleyball with the womens national team? We must have all been thinking about that subconsciously, because that was at right around 4:37pm, just like I have written here. OR Toss out 4 different colored pens. Everyone grabs one, secretly writes their lucky number on the table in front of them and covers it with their hands. Using the remaining pen, you write your lucky number as well. All four pens are returned to the center of the table and after your three friends have revealed their 3 numbers, you reveal that yours is the largest. Whats not immediately obvious, is that your number is the exact sum of their lucky numbers! OR With one friend, write down a word and cover it with your hands. Ask her to try and read your mind by looking into your eyes. Have her try to read the word youre thinking of. Window? she asks? Very close! you exclaim. I was thinking of wind you say as you uncover the word. AND MUCH MORE! Read on.. 3

Introduction
While the method of this manuscript is a prediction technique, the magic of it is the involvement of a group of people sitting around bonding and reconnecting. In an effort to be thorough, I looked up friendship in Wikipedia and it says its a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more beings. Im not sure thats how I would have put it, but now that you know what friendship is, we can move on. BFF grew from my desire for a magical routine I could use to bring people together. Specifically, I wanted a way to perform for my close friends and family that made sense, helped us all subtly remember the value of our relationships and could be performed in a casual environment. What follows is my solution.

Method Summary
The method for Best Friends Forever is a combination of a versatile, almost angle-proof secret writing technique, and bold, thoughtprovoking presentation.

Method Step-by-Step
Best Friends Forever can be performed at any restaurant or cafe. It can be done using a pen or marker you bring, or even impromptu with borrowed crayons available for kids at many restaurants. I love to perform it at restaurants that use a large sheet of paper for tablecloth, but paper placemats work equally well. It can be performed for 3 other people (seated at a square table) which is one of the greatest strengths, to be able to involve and engage 3 people in one trick. The technique is perfect for performing in this position because it protects almost every angle. You could easily adapt this for a large group as well. Supplies 1 normal sized pen, marker or crayon 1 mini version of the same color pen, marker or crayon When presenting any of the miracles possible with Best Friends Forever, you will be using a normal size pen, marker or crayon, along with a short version. When using crayons, you can simpy have duplicate crayons with you, since they are the perfect size already.

There are now a wide variety of mini version of gel pens and markers at most office supply stores. Sharpie being the most popular among magicians. Whats fantastic about this new development is that the writing tips are exactly the same which allows you to produce accurate writing and colors in your predictions.

BFF (Bent Fourth Finger) The secret writing technique I developed is ideal for situations where youre seated and writing on the table (the most natural place to write when seated!) Its accomplished by loading a small pen into thumb palm so the tip of the pen is touching the paper when your hand is held vertically.

This allows your ring finger to move the tip of the pen around to write. With some practice, you will find that you can easily write numbers, letters and even short words with little difficulty, all while in a position that is justified as simply wanting to cover what you just wrote.

Angle Proof The real innovation I feel especially proud to offer you, is a method of angle-proofing this technique. By loosely interlocking your fingers, leaving your dominant ring-finger inside, you can actually write quite comfortably while hiding your pen and all the movement involved in writing from the others seated at your table. From the outside, this is very deceptive. Sitting with interlocked fingers is very natural. Even if someone is paying extremely close attention, it would be difficult to notice that one of your fingers is missing, especially since theres no attention drawn there.

Simply interlock your fingers but leave your dominant ring finger inside your hands, free to control your hidden writing tool.

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Not only is this a natural and comfortable position to be in to cover your prediction, but it provides cover from over 300 degrees around you! Twiddle A great way to disguise even the slightest of movement in your hands is to twiddle your thumbs once in a while during performance. Youll notice that it doesnt interfere with your grip on the pen, and from the outside, there doesnt appear to be any possible way you could be writing anything. Complete Cover If someone walks behind you while youre still performing, you can completely cover your prediction by bringing your palms together while your fingers are still interlocked. This will completely cover whats written as well as the pen youre holding. 11

The Gimmick One final development I had with this technique is to make a multicolor pen index. What this allows you to do is use many colored pens in your routine and to be able to blindly pick your secret writing tool. This is not necessary, but having your spectator pick the color you use is a great way to subtly sell the authenticity of your prediction (as well as fry any of your magician friends!)

As you can see, it is just a tag-style keychain with multiple, colored mini-Sharpies attached. Mini-Sharpies are easy since they already come with keychain-ready attachments, but almost any pen cap can be modified to work.

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Its important and useful to note that the order of the pens on the keychain will never change relative to the tag. As a result of this ringed nature of the keychain, you can grab the pen you need without looking as long as you remember its order on the ring. Practice Its important that you practice two things till they are automatic. 1) The BFF technique of secret writing. This is obvious, perhaps, but its important that you are able to write in this way without thinking or looking. The more you practice, the better your handwriting will get. With enough practice, this writing can be indistinguishable from normal handwriting. I would recommend filling pages and pages of notebook paper with practice writing. Write numbers, words, symbols, and anything else you plan on ever predicting. 2) Getting in and out of the interlocked finger position. This is not as obvious but is at least as important as the writing! To perform casually and comfortably, you must not draw any attention to what 13

youre doing at any moment. Getting into an interlocked finger position with one finger sticking out is not intuitive. It requires some repetitive practice. Try starting with your hands resting on the table apart, then getting into a normal interlocked position, going back to a rest position, then into a BFF interlocked position. Repeat this 100 times every day for a week and you should be ready. When youre comfortable enough simply getting in and out of BFF position, try doing it with a small pen in thumb palm, as you will in performance. Shifting While youre writing words, you will need to move your hands everso-slightly to the right every letter or two. When youre normally writing you dont even pay attention but its necessary in order to have room. My style is to write a letter or two, twiddle my thumbs as I slide my hands by a centimeter. While this is going on, its important that youre not paying any attention to the writing. This is the reason its absolutely necessary to practice until you can write without looking or even paying attention. Getting into Position When you know which color you need to use, prepare by getting the pen into a sort of finger palm. Use your ring finger to hold the pen. The tip of the pen should sit somewhere around the heal of your palm, and the back of the pen between your index and middle fingers. In ball manipulation, this is sometimes called the touch palm.

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Whats great about this position is that you can grab the full size pen on the table and write naturally without drawing any attention to the fact that youre holding a pen. When youve finished writing, you can put the pen down just as naturally. Try it!

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Cover Once youve gotten into position, youll need to pretend to write something on the table. To do this, provide cover by holding your non-writing hand in front of your pen-tip.

When writing, touch your middle finger to the paper to create the audio illustion that youre actually writing something. Finally, make sure you remember where you wrote! Its critical that your revelation doesnt appear somewhere else on the paper!

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Now, before you get into the interlocked position, simply switch your grip on the pen to your thumb.

This will allow you to easily get into the interlocked finger position needed to do your secret writing without flashing your hidden pen.

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Once in interlocked position, you can get into the BFF position very easily by pivoting the pen with your non-writing hands thumb. It will very easily swivel into position, and you can clip it with your dominant hands thumb.

Now youre ready to perform!

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Presentation
There are so many ways to present BFF. I will now describe the thinking behind several presentations. Before we begin I must mention, its critical that the presentation you use involves the spectators reading your mind and not the other way around. The reasoning for this is two-fold. Firstly, them reading your mind gives you more time to observe whats happening and to do the secret writing. Secondly (and even more important), its the only presentation that makes sense! If you could really read your spectators mind, why would you write it down at all? You wouldnt, of course. Youd simply tell them what they were thinking! Get out of my head! Have 3 or 4 different colored pens on the table and ask your friend if she would like to try to read your mind. Tell your spectator about how colors cause emotional responses and can trigger certain thoughts and memories, even subconsciously. Have her choose one of the colors on the table. As she chooses, prepare by grabbing your mini version of that color under the table. Now tell her you will think of something that involves that color. Write something on the table in front of you providing cover with your non-writing hand. In fact, you write nothing. After writing, place the pen away from you and have your spectator grab it and hold on to it for inspiration. This subtly reminds her that you were far from the pen during the performance. Now get into the interlocked BFF position and act as though youre merely covering your writing. 19

Explain that youve written down a short word that involves the color chosen and that you want your spectator to read your mind. She will likely be hesitant to try, as this is obviously an impossible request. Have her relax, and explain that you want her to do it subconsciously. Have her just call out the first letter that comes to mind. Look at the word youve written and act surprised. Lucky guess you say. Now have her name another one, while you write the first letter down. Then have her name a third as you write the second letter. As shes calling out letters, you will be trying to form a word, rather you will be trying to think of a word that makes sense. You can help your spectator form a likely 3 letter combination by having her first name any consonant, then any vowel, then any consonant. This way she wont say xwb or something equally nonsensical. Once shes called out 2 or 3 letters, have her try to think of the word her mind was subconsciously drawing her to. When she thinks of one, you should only have to write one or two more letters to complete it. Remember youve told her its a short word. At this point, you can reveal that you were both thinking along the same lines by either showing her an exact match or a word off by a letter. I often like to miss slightly. What this does is immediately draw attention away from any kind of secret writing solution to a psychological one. After all, why would you miss if you were secretly writing the answer? Given the circumstances, even a prediction that is close to the right answer is extremely remarkable. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a perfect guess! To clean up, just pull your hand back to the edge of the table when you reveal your word and drop your secret writing tool into your lap. All attention will be on the word so you really have no reason to be worried about getting caught. If you have someone sitting beside you, then you can modify this by just reaching casually into your pocket for chapstick or to check your cell phone. If youre using 20

markers, make sure youre wearing dark pants! You can just as easily do this routine with a single color pen simplifying your setup. What is nice about the multi-color performance is that it creates both psychological explanation as well as a huge convincer that you couldnt have been ready to secretly write in a randomly chosen color. A lot of times what I will do is combine a perfect performance with a completely straight performance right after or before. Only to show either a) that this stuff doesnt always work, or b) a true miracle if I happen to guess something close. In fact, the best performance situation for the routine Ive just described is actually for a group of 3 or 4. Just have the first two or three people offer a letter and have the last person guess the word. I described it with one person to keep the order of events simpler. Chain of Events This presentation has an interesting psychological premise. Explain to your spectators that word association games have been around for years where someone says a word and the person across from them says the first word that pops into their mind. For example if I said the word barn what would you say? Cow. Cow, right. Well if I had predicted that you would say cow that wouldnt be so impressive since a large fraction of people would say cow. What Id like to try is something a little more challenging. I want to start a chain of association events that triggers a word several levels deep. Let me explain. Ill say a word, then you say the first word that comes to your mind, then Michael you do the same thing with that word, on to Luke then back to you, John. We could 21

actually go around as many times as we like. Ive been studying this for some time now and Ive gotten pretty good at getting four levels deep. Also Ive gotten to know the three of you pretty well over the years, so it should improve my chances. You now write down a word and begin. Ill write a word now and we can begin. Now hopefully when it comes back around to me, Luke will have said this word. Ok, John, the trigger word is beach. And so it goes. You really can go around and around as many times as you like. The difference between this performance and the previous is in one critical point: you dont have time to write the letters as the word is being spelled out. As a result you have a lot less time to get your prediction down. I have two solutions to this. 1. Recap. At the end of the chain of events, you look at the word you have written and raise an eyebrow (if you can). Say that what happened is very interesting. Now go back and recap the assocations the people made. John, you said sand, then Michael, why did you say glass? What this will do is buy you a few seconds to write down the word (or a word close to it). Interesting, you say as you reveal the word. 2. One off. Another solution to the timing issue is to write down the word just before the last one. So for example if John says, sail Michael says, boat and Luke says oar, you can write the word boat. The justification for this is easy. Explain that John (your first spectator) must have made an extra level of association in his mind without even realizing it. Tell him this is probably because he is naturally someone who thinks several levels deep when solving problems. Not only will John feel a bit of pride at this point and not argue with you, but getting the word boat is still incredibly impressive! As with the previous routine, I actually like being slightly less 22

than perfect on my results. Also like the previous presentation I will combine a straight (guess based) performance with the magical version. I will now give an example from my most recent performance. I had 3 spectators and my initial word was beach. The first association was sand the next, sea and finally shark. Now I wrote the word shard. Not only is it off by one, but I explained that I thought the word sand would trigger glass followed by shard. An interesting and thought-provoking result for the audience. Its actually easier than you might think to provide alternate association paths. As humans were basically walking association machines which is why this routine works so well in the first place. After performing BFF, I decided to try a completely straight guessed association. Knowing that it was one of my spectators birthday, I used the word birthday and wrote down candle guessing that the association would go to present, then cake and finally to candle. The chain of events that ended up happening was present (great!), card and cake. Now this is again thoughtprovoking. I immediately lift my hands to show that once again Ive not only predicted a word that starts with the same letters, but that the association was just off by one. I include this example to show how you can use probabilistic straight guesses to spice up your performance, switch up your performance (use a slightly longer word, reveal the word faster) and further mystify your audience to your methods. Also what I love about this style of switching it up is that it creates that wonder in your audiences mind whether this kind of multi-level word association prediction is really possible. Derren Brown is master of making psychologically impossible experiments seem within the limits of human abilities. If youre performing for your friends, the fact that you know them so well adds another level of depth to the equation. Its one thing for a magician you just met to read your mind, but for a close friend to demonstrate how well they know you is really quite interesting! To make the predictions seem even more impossible, try going 23

around the table two or three rounds! Reminiscence This presentation is based on reminiscing. Explain to your friends that youre thinking of a time the four of you had an incredibly fun time together. Tell them that youre going to try an experiment. Youre going to write down one word, a single word that captures the essence of that memory. Not only do you want your friends to read your mind as to which experience youre thinking of, but to pick out that one word that sums it all up. Whats great about this presentation is that as your friends discuss all the great times youve had over the years, not only will you all be having a great time recreating those memories of good times, but as they start to zero in on a particular event, you can actually try and predict the word they may say. And even if you dont get the right word exactly, you will get close enough for the experiment to be considered a success! The Best Time EVER! In this presentation you will start out like the previous one in explaining that youre thinking of a great time the four of you had. In fact that the three of them are also subconsciously aware of it. Tell them youre going to write down a time. Hours, minutes and AM/PM. Now have your first friend call out an hour, your second friend call out a minute and the third friend pick AM or PM. As theyre saying this of course youre doing the secret writing. In addition to writing however you need to also be thinking of a time when the four of you were hanging out at that time when something cool happened. Normally if youve spent enough time with a group of friends, youve had experiences at just about any hour of the day (or night!). Have a few of these in mind before you start and you should be all set. 24

The nice thing is that these experiences normally span several hours so you can fudge the minutes and hours and most people wont ever really remember exact times. Remember, the even more amazing part is the fact that your time is the same as the one they each called out. Whats great about this presentation is that it gets the ball rolling with the four of you reminiscing and laughing about good times, with an amazing demonstration of synchronicity thrown in! Non-verbal Communication This is pretty much the simplest of all presentations. Explain how much of communication is non-verbal. Talk about how in fact most of it is in the eyes. That there are even certain speed-dating programs where the participants just sit silently looking into each others eyes for 2 full minutes and deciding whether there was a connection. Have your friend sit across from you and try to read your thoughts. Write down a word and cover it with your interlocked hands. Ask her to try to say the word youve written down just by reading your thoughts. Tell her she has a full minute and that when a word comes to mind to just say it. After a few tries from your friend, just write down the word she says and reveal it.

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Lucky Numbers As described earlier, everyone at the table writes their lucky number and puts their pen back in the middle. Write yours quickly and toss your pen back in the middle. While everyone is revealing their numbers, start doing the math and getting ready by stealing the same colored short pen from your lanyard gimmick. Finally, by the time its your turn, write the sum total down using the BFF technique then reveal that its the largest lucky number of the 4. Let someone else realize that its the sum of the three others if possible. Entree Prediction When at a restaurant that has numbers next to the menu items, try this. Ask your friend to try to predict what youre going to order for lunch. Tell them youll write it down so you cant change your mind. When they tell you their prediction, have the menu sitting open on the table and secretly write the menu item number. I really like this presentation as its short, sweet and very relevent!

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Additional Ideas
The BFF technique Ive developed for this routine is extremely versatile and will serve well in many situations. Below I have listed some additional ideas you can explore. Crayons I know I mentioned it at the beginning of this manuscript, but I cant stress enough how great it is to be able to perform at a restaurant table with the crayons they offer to the kids for scribbling. Just take an extra pack for yourself as your secret stock when youre walking in (or have it ready from a previous recon mission). Theyre just the right size, and using crayons adds such a level of innocence to any presentation. Heterogenious Writing Tool Selection This whole time Ive been saying things like different colored pens or different colored markers. What would happen if you used a marker, a pen and a crayon? You can just as easily be ready to use any one of them, but imagine what it adds to throw off any suspicion about nail-writers! Try it! I think youll see what a difference it makes. If at a restaurant, walk away from the table and pretend to go borrow them from the host stand. Do as I Do Prediction Have 4 different colored pens on the table and have your spectator pick a pen for each of you. Take this wherever you like. Drawing Theres no reason you have to limit yourself to writing. Practice with the BFF technique and you can draw symbols, or even simple sketches. With practice, you can be as skilled at BFF as you are in normal writing position. 27

Selections Instead of writing your predictions, you can also try presentations that involve circling, underlining or ticking options. Any Nail-writing Routine Any routine you may already know or can imagine that would ordinarily use a nail-writer can usually be adapted to work using BFF. Thats a huge body of work to have available at a moments notice!

Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Michael W. and Luke Jermay for your feedback and your co-operative and supportive behavior. Im pretty sure this means were friends.

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Final Thoughts
Hopefully by now your mind is swimming with ideas on how to use your new secret weapon! As useful as the BFF technique is however, I sincerely believe its the social aspects of the presentations that are its true value. To be able to bring a group of people together at a dinner table, all talking and bonding is always a great feeling. Getting several spectators to paricipate in a routines success and to have them really feel like they were involved in making the magic happen is a big challenge so I am always excited when the opportunity arises. Thank you for your interest in my work. As always, if you have any questions or comments please feel free to email me personally at alvo.stockman@gmail.com Sincerely, Alvo Stockman

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Notes

Notes

Also by Alvo Stockman

MIX TAPE
POSTMENTALISM
POETRY READING

Elixir of Life

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