I was recently interviewed at The Awl, a popular news based blog in NYC. The segment was on my unorthodox career as a magician, opposed to the usual 9-5. The questions were straightforward, and I gave okay answers amidst the bewildering state of Wall Street. After a few glamor photos and a pizza, I went home with a smug grin. The afternoon seemed to be a warm success. not entirely.

One question in particular was on current events, something I’ve admittedly not been up to date with. However, wanting to avoid appearing ignorant at all costs, I answered the question as quickly as possible anyway.

What’s your opinion of the Ground Zero Mosque?

Based loosely on discussions with my girlfriend, Eaves Drop. And context clues from the question at hand, I made a terrible assumption that the Mosque was to be built in place of the twin towers. Not blocks away in place of the old Burlington Coat Factory. YIKES. This misunderstanding was the foundation of my rather embarrassing reply.

“I’m certainly against it, not because I don’t subscribe to any religion, but because I think the best response is to rebuild the towers in their entirety. We have to continue with business as usual. It’s the only way we can demonstrate our strength as a nation.”

When comments came in, the cool breeze in my smug sails came to a startling halt. Rendering the sails of my ship – The Pride – metaphorically flaccid.  They came fluttering down to the starboard side of my dignity. I thought of running home and weeping like a little schoolgirl into my pinkish pillow, but years of mini failures and embarrassing moments brought me to some conclusions.  I realized any silly emotional paralysis would restrain my stretching of comfort zones, and the welcoming of new opportunities. I found the option of gaining value and learning from the experience, far more pleasing. And would keep my cute Matty dimples in place for years to come. I found the solution was to educate myself immediately on the matter, forgive myself for what cannot be changed, and welcome the joys of enlightenment.

I am not about to give another opinion at this moment, at least not until I’ve had the time necessary to discuss and absorb my thoughts on the matter. For now I can simply report my love for the very right to honest opinions in a open forum. To have the glorious freedoms that allow us to protest, support, or proselytize when necessary. This is far more important than the opinions of a young, charming, and sickeningly handsome entertainer. Ah yes, ego back up to speed…

Lessons learned

• Be up to date! Take time to reflect on a subject before spouting opinions.
• Never let the emotion or ego grab hold of you in conversation. You may sound stupid…
• Accept what can not be changed and learn from the mistakes.
• Look at the perspective – A silly mistaken comment is nothing to whine about. More people have real problems!

I’ve been a Cooper, and you’ve been ambrosial (clearly just found that word on the inter-web to impress you. Ego deflated)

Click here for the The Awl blog post original.

I’ve expressed my affection for classical music before, but will admit an exaggeration of interest. A slightly pretentious choice, I do realize. I only listened because sometimes I would sink into it, though secretly never enjoyed it with the same passion I hold for the Blues. At least not until I stumbled upon this speech given at TED. It truly inspired my honest interest and growing passion for Classical music, evoking a wondrous new feeling! However I still reserve late nights for the Blues and a beer, but Classical music has a new place in my affections. Benjamin has inspired a fire inside of me, and has tickled my itch for the ivory keys.

Watch the video when you have some free time to really listen, and I can promise your enlightenment. let Benjamin Zander take you into his world and come out of it on one buttock (you’ll see)

In 1948, B.F Skinner put hungry pigeons into glass boxes, equipped with automatic feeders that dispensed food pellets. Interestingly, our feathered friends developed rituals that earned them pellets of food!

• repetitive pecking on the wall & floor
• systematic head bobbing
• spinning in specific numbers
• hopping on one leg

How did their rituals control the outcome?! Well, they didn’t…

It was superstition. The pigeons developed what they thought was a correct ritual to earn food. In truth, their actions were arbitrary because the machine dispensed food at 15 second intervals! So when a pigeons action inevitably matched-up with the dispensement of food, it wrongly linked cause & effect. The birds developed a false belief that they had control of their surroundings – albeit a tiny glass box.

Before you start giggling and calling our feathered friends stupid, disease ridden aviators, I want to introduce someone to you. Enter Koichi Ono.

Koichi developed a similar experiment with humans, wherein he crammed us into similar pigeon boxes…(not true) He actually sat participants down at a desk with 3 colored levers along with an electronic score board. Their task was to rack up as many points as possible, but were NOT told how! Unknown to the subjects, the score board was rigged to award points at random; it wasn’t even hooked up to the levers. But because participants were eager to win, they became creative in attempts to earn more points, and developed strong beliefs in their methods;  Just like our friendly fat rat fliers!

• simple lever pulling variations
• complicated mathematical formulas in lever pulling
• knocking on table with intermittent lever pulling
• even jumping out of chairs to touch ceiling, mixed with lever pulls

Once a few coincidental patterns of “cause and effect“ emerged, they were hooked! Even when their actions failed to earn points, they persisted with conviction. The same reason a team mate of mine didn’t wash his jock jock strap after a good game. The way he saw it, genital sweat meant more strike outs.

What I find particularly interesting about superstition, is how we ignore negative results. We never take a step back and look at the situation objectively. We note success and ignore failure. We take the herbal remedy near the end of a cold, and link new found health to an effective cure, leading to bad decisions regarding science and medicine for our future well being.

Our very useful and effective survival mechanism for picking up patterns, turns to pigeon poo when it comes to coincidence and chance. We are thrown into skinners box, left pecking at the walls and spinning in the random world around us. Something to think about.

How did I stop a crazy homeless man from attacking me? Or bring a grown man from dangerous aggressor, to wimpy boy in a matter of seconds.

If you’ve every been confronted by an aggressive person – clearly prepared to brawl – It’s likely you chose one of 4 routes.

1. Walk away (not always effective)
2. Talk them down and get them to relax (less effective than #1)
3. Stand strong, speak your mind, and push back (asking for trouble)
4. Throw the first punch (tango)

Unless you enjoy confrontation, none of these actions are preferred. The trouble is you respond congruently with the mad man, keeping his anger alive. However, there is another option. Imagine the ability to instantly wipe his aggression clean, as if there never was a problem to begin with…

1:00 am, Midtown Manhattan

Wandering through NYC trying to locate the nearest subway, I noticed a gentleman walking aggressively towards me, proceeding to SLAM his shoulder into mine – with obvious intention – along with the frightening words “MOVE PUNK”! I was momentarily paralyzed by the circumstance, standing motionless locked in eye contact. He of course took this as an invitation to approach me, so it seemed a perfect moment to try a confusion technique I used once before on a homeless man. With a warm face, relaxed body, and open arms, I said to the approaching lunatic “my hands do get dry when I wash them”. He stopped dead in his tracks to process what I’d said. “WHAT“ he replied, to which I responded, “when I wash my hands, they really dry out. I could use some lotion, but I don’t want to carry that around with me every where I go, it’s just annoying”. He took another few moments to process my sentence, then literally transformed in front of me. The vein popping mad man, let out a long deflating exhale. Like a red balloon releasing air, turning blue in the process. His head and shoulders dropped and his face relaxed as he said the following soft spoken words, “why do I do this….” His breath wreaked of liquor as he continued mumbling something about his life. His hand moved to my shoulder as I pretended to listen. I told him everything would be fine… He thanked me and walked off!

What happened?! Why did this work?!

By shifting your body language to be totally incongruent with theirs, and by saying something that makes sense but is completely out of context, you are interrupting their pattern. You literally shake their state loose with confusion. It’s like throwing them into a fun house of mirrors. They have no idea where to go, and because you seem to know the way, they follow your lead.
I would urge you to practice your own line. One that is easy to remember, makes complete sense, but is totally out of context; responding as if everything is normal. The confusing interaction throws their head into a tailspin with nothing to grab hold of, stripping them of their emotive state. In a desperate attempt to make sense of the situation, they have to grab onto something, and because you seem to make sense in some way, they follow your direction! A calm, relaxed and friendly person.

I realize the insanity of this idea, and I would not write about it if I didn’t find the concept valid. But having used this twice during my recent move to Brooklyn NY, I’m happy to attest to its beauty.

Thank you for reading. Good morning.

In this case attention to detail.

So often we get caught up in getting from A-B, we lose so much of what life has to offer in between. To focus on detail, is to have life JUMP out at you, and create stronger, more colorful, vivid memories. A life of accumulated experiences sounds so much more gratifying than a life of something once owned. So take in the good the bad and the ugly, take in as much as you can, ask more questions, taste and feel more, find the subtleties and differences that make the stuff of our lives wondrous! My aim is not to ride off into the blogger-sphere spouting wisdom upon a high horse, telling you how to live your life; Hell, I’m 21. My task is to simply keep this idea alive in my own head, and possibly share it with those who may find it of interest.

Try this: Next time you speak with someone, notice details you would usually skim over. Notice their hair and how it lays, the callosity of their hands, their gestures, what do they smell like, notice the tone of their voice, really let it sink in! Does it resonate, is it rich, annoying, humorous, soft, raspy? Notice any strange habits, really lock it in as if it’s supposed to be a significant memory. There is something truly fascinating about attention to detail were we usually ignore it, where we lose grip from the slippery surface of our short term memory.

The Real Sherlock Holmes – 0r the real Dr. House if that tickles your fancy more.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was of course the man who brought us the master mind of rationalism – Sherlock Holmes. Sadly, if I mentioned Joseph Bell, you may draw a blank. Joseph Bell is the inspiration behind the ever popular character, Sherlock Holmes.

Conan Doyle was a student of J. Bell, and had much admiration for his radical and accurate deductions in diagnostics from close observation. He’s considered by some to be a pioneer in forensics, when science was seldom used for criminal investigation. To demonstrate the power of close observation, Bell would often play game wherein a random person was selected, and by observation alone he would deduce the vocation and recent activities the person had been involved with. Conan Doyle stressed this point through the character of Sherlock Holmes with this quote – “By a man’s finger nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boot, by his trouser knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt cuffs – by each of these things a man’s calling is plainly revealed”

Have some fun with your own deductions! We do it on an unconscious level anyway when making our first impressions; why not make it a focused task? You may surprise yourself with your new found skill, because the truth is – we may see, but we rarely observe.

P.S – You may be excited to find the ever popular “Dr. House”, is based on Sherlock Holmes. I’ll leave it up to your skills of observation to find the correlations.

I had the absolute privilege to see Chilly Gonzales live, here in NYC. He came out on stage in a satin smoking jacket and white gloves, reminiscent at times of “Cardini“, a master magician of the early to mid 20th century. Like “Cardini”, Gonzales seemed to be a slightly drunk, gentleman, musical conjurer. His combination of showmanship and musical ability truly created an evening of wonder, and was a performance I sincerely appreciated. Below is the performance he gave in France some years ago. The whole show is on youtube, so click here to get acquainted.