Big Announcement from The Jerx

[MagicbyAlfred]

Now, Mac King - a far more plausible candidate than Derren Brown. But neither Mac nor Derren would probably have had the time to write the Jerx blog. I don't know if we'll ever know who Andy really is. I suspect that if we did find out, however, it would not be a well-known (if known at all) figure in the magic world. In any event, the mystery enshrouding Andy's true identity is a huge part of his currency. Why would he want to spend it? Perhaps he now aims to create a new magical detective mystery along the lines of the Erdnase dialogue.

My candidate: Mortimer Shnerd, from Omaha, Nebraska.

[Leo Garet]

Andy's blog is five years old today. And he has marked that moment by finally stepping out of the shadows to reveal his real identity.

http://www.thejerx.com/blog/2020/5/23/the-jerx-revealed

Finally manged to access the link. Now then, where's Joe?

He's the expert when it comes to Andy, so howsabout it Joe?

Is this the straight gen?

No I thought not.

[Joe Mckay]

Don't look at me. I know no more than anyone else!

[PapaG]

Isn't it pretty obvious. Derren is a fan of The Jerx site — and they're both fond of a good old-fashioned wind-up.

[Randy DiMarco]

I don't know that Andy's real identity is as big of a mystery as people seem to think. I think if you really want to find out you could. I have heard that he is actually pretty well known by the younger guys in New York City. I have been told his name but I don't remember it. I think his real first name is Adam. One clue I can give you is that his mother is originally from the Rochester, NY area.

That's all I have

R"Andy"

[Steve Bryant]

Derren Brown was not Andy. The real Andy's confession is now on line. Check it out.

[Bob Farmer]

Soylent Green is people not Andy.

[Richard Kaufman]

Nah, not Mac.

[AJM]

I can exclusively reveal that Richard is the mysterious Andy.

[AJM]

Or Bob.

[Jack Shalom]

And we haven't seen Mark Lewis for a while...

[Bill Mullins]

Andy's ego isn't big enough to be Mark Lewis.

I think his real first name is Adam.

Adam Rubin?

[Joe Mckay]

Adam Rubin is a popular guess.

I used to be curious about who Andy was (I often think it may be a few different people sharing the same name). But since it is clear that he wants to keep his identity secret - out of respect for that I have moved on from the issue since I don't want Andy to get annoyed and suddenly take his ball home. He has already walked away from a successful blog once before (about 17 years ago).

That said - Andy is happy for people to throw names around since it adds to the misdirection.

I remember Andy had an interesting quote once from Descartes on his blog:

http://www.thejerx.com/blog/2015/5/27/the-rise-and-rise-of-the-magic-circle-jerk-1

The phrase was this: "And I've learned a lot about performing magic these past 10 years that, as Descartes said, it would be shameful of me to withhold". I ran the final part of the phrase through google and found only a single hit.

It is from this book:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YILoGWN-4bYC&pg=PP15&dq=%22it+would+be+shameful+of+me+to+withhold%22+descartes#v=onepage&q=%22it%20would%20be%20shameful%20of%20me%20to%20withhold%22%20descartes&f=false

https://www.amazon.com/Philosophers-Diet-Weight-Change-Nonpareil/dp/1567920845

The author is a philosopher called Richard Watson who was born in 1931. He died on 18th Spetember, 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Watson_(philosopher)

Richard Watson is an interesting guy who wrote funny books about philosophy that treated the subject in an off-beat and funny way. Just as Andy does with magic.

What is interesting is if you look at Andy's blog - the blog posts between the period Sept. 17-22 were a series of posts called TRANSITIONING, PART 1 & II & III

http://www.thejerx.com/blog/2019/9/17/transitioning-part-i-defining-the-problem

http://www.thejerx.com/blog/2019/9/19/transitioning-part-ii

http://www.thejerx.com/blog/2019/9/22/transitioning-part-iii

However when you scroll down the sidebar on his blog - the posts above are actually listed as being Sept. 18, 20 & 23. Each post is "Off by one".

So I think Andy is using the classic "Off by one" magician gag to draw attention to the date of September 18th, 2019.

The date he died.

The date he launched a series of posts that are clues telling us he is transitioning to the next stage of reality.

So - I can only surmise that since Sept 18th - somebody else has taken over the blog. Or perhas he is part of a secret google project where his consciousness has been uploaded to the google servers as part of a transhumanist AI project?

That sounds unlikely - but Sergey Brin became interested in the faro shuffle a few years ago. I remember Penn Jilette mentioning this on one of his podcasts when he had a meeting with Sergey. So perhaps Sergey's interest in the faro shuffle caused him to discover Andy's blog? And realising that an 88 year old retired philosopher might not be around much longer - used some kind of secret AI technology to upload his consciousness to the internet in order to achieve magic immortality?

If you look at the share price for Alphabet Inc (the umbrella company that owns google) - the share price rose 30% in the months after the death of Richard Wilson (Sept 18th, 2019).

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/a/alphabet-inc-npv-a

It has collapsed (and rebounded) since the global pandemic hit. But that suggests to me that there was some major excitement around google in those months that caused insiders to bet on the company.

This would be good news since it would be unlikely that Andy would suddenly quit the blog again at short notice if he is now a transhuman who has uploaded his consciousness to hyperspace.

I haven't been outside in 3 weeks.

[AJM]

Or Bill.

[Jonathan Townsend]

The Watson books look interesting. Thanks Joe.

Maybe "Andy" stays up late some nights or his internet connection was in a different time zone.
Looking at an earlier post from January 31 2017 you can find: http://www.thejerx.com/blog/2017/1/31/gardyloo-17
in the source: meta itemprop="datePublished" content="2017-02-01T04:00:45-0500"

[Leo Garet]

Interesting post Joe. Are you sure you’re not Andy?

Probably not.

As for off beet, well I think Andy is Erdnase. After all, Andrew is a pactogrim of wander, which in Parluvian Logic transhumates as Ynad: an anagrammatical andygram of Andy.

I haven’t been out for a month. At least I don’t think I have.