About five years ago, I used a torn and restored newspaper as the closer to a show. I used Nick Lewin’s Slow Motion Paper Tear, and it got great responses. Someone in a Facebook group asked about a newspaper tear that gives you clean edges on the tear. In my experience with the trick getting a clean tear is a combination of the grain/quality of the newspaper and just doing it a lot. The more you do it, the easier it is to get a clean tear.
That’s not really what this post is about, it’s about using a newspaper. Look below to see multiple people mention newspapers not being common:
Yes, I agree a newspaper isn’t common, but they still exist. Just about every grocery store in the USA still sells them. Here’s a list of things magician use that they consider “everyday objects” but I think aren’t:
- Dollar bills
- Coins
- Handkerchiefs
- Playing cards
- Pencil
- Breast pocket size wallets
- Records
- CD
All of those things still exist in the world, but the average person probably interacts with them about the same as a newspaper. I can’t think of the last time I held a pencil or handkerchief that wasn’t magic related. I hardly use cash anymore, and outside of a magic context, I’d say its been years since I would have touched playing cards.
It’s all about context, people still know what a newspaper is, they just might not have physically touched one recently. I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t use one based on how often people see them, but it’s not a strange object. A silver dollar is more strange than a newspaper.
That said, the first line of the newspaper tear when I did it was a joke explaining what a newspaper is.
-Louie