talkmagic.co.uk

For me, Magic/Mentalism is just a hobby; something to pass the time when I need a break, just one thread to the complex bayeux tapestry of my interests and something to do at 3am once everyone is starting to sober up

I suppose I would call myself, at present, an opportune performer- that is to say, I perform only when the opportunity arrises for fun.

Sometimes, luck in magic seems to want to make you commit suicide, other times it seems to proove that there is a God, after all. I was reminded, because today I was along with some people and someone walked up to me and said 'what's the word I am thinking of?' and I said (Obviously with a bit more BS) 'You're thinking of a heart'. Of course, amidst the chaos, fainting, new found disciples and sexual offers, there was some incredibly lucky misunderstanding operating- completley uncreated by me. It appeared that I had been challenged, wheras in fact, the person was someone who I had been doing some mentalism with the day before, but I had to leave and she wanted me to finish it.

Another lucky moment was when someone genuinley picked the same card three times in a row, the deck being in their hands.

I always love these kinds of stories, so I was just wondering, what luck story do you have?

does luck really exist?

You'll only ever be lucky if you give it a go. Don't try and you'll never be lucky.

Anyway, one that springs to mind, I'd been entertaining a table full of laydeez at a table-hopping gig. Just as I was about to leave, one of the girls picked up my cards and said "Okay, no messing about, I'm thinking of a card. What is it?"

I didn't want to back out of the challenge. nor did I want to go down the road of "Well, if you'll just write the name of your card onto this piece of paper..."

So I just looked her in the eye, and fully expecting to be wrong said, "Seven of spades."

It was right. I hate to sound American, but they were fried. So was I to be honest. I didn't get shagged or anything, but it was fun none the less.

themagicwand wrote:You'll only ever be lucky if you give it a go. Don't try and you'll never be lucky..

Wise words!

themagicwand wrote:I didn't get shagged or anything, but it was fun none the less.

I've had a couple of these 'lucky' things, but like all these kinds of things, I (we) tend to remember the hits more than the misses. Mine haven't been as earth-shattering to others but some recent ones:

I was out having drinks with the better half recently and a friend turned up who's always a big fan of a mentalism effect or two so it was a simple thought transmission, two letters. It worked and said friend was happy that he'd recieved the letters successfully but wanted to give it a try himself, to see if he could transmit. I suggested numbers and he dutifully wrote a two digit number on the slip of paper. I went for our old friend '37' and he'd written '73' - he took that as a hit.

Another one was the compere at a gig I recently did (badly). After the show he'd introduced me to his fiance to be and told me they'd arranged to get engaged the night before*. He asked me if I could tell him how long away, in months, they planned to get engaged. Like themagicwand earlier, I didn't want to go down the billet/CT route but quickly reasoned that if he was thinking in terms of 'months away' rather than a specific month then it had to be a 'round' figure, so took a punt on 6 months. Spot on.

I suppose mine were a little bit reasoned as opposed to lucky.

* Off-topic, but I really don't get why people plan to get engaged... surely if you ask someone to marry you, then by that virtue you're engaged?

When I perform Directors Cut I always dabble with a bit of cold reading. I try to deduce when they saw the film, if they liked it, how they felt, who they saw it with, etc, etc. At a gig a couple of months ago a lady picked the Elephant Man. I managed by sheer luck to deduce she had seen it at the cinema, with her husband, but he was her boyfriend at the time, she didn't enjoy the film, but got upset at the end and cried. People were gob smacked. So was I. Sheer dumb luck.

What about when people exaggerate your effects later in retelling? I'm a bu**er for accepting full credit Does anyone else accept full credit for an exaggerated effect? For example I showed a fella 'Wow'. A few weeks later a friend of his grabbed me and said 'I heard you did a trick where you threw cards at a window and my mates card was sealed inside the window! And he'd signed it and it's still stuck in the window now!'

'Yes'. I replied. 'Yes I did.' What a rotter I am

Someone once asked what I did, I replied 'I'm a Mind Reader'... so obviously they then ask 'What word am I thinking of?' I was completely unaware of what to do at this point so I said '----' something which can't be repeated here, as a joke. Was wrong, took a stab in the dark at Aerial, and was bang on. Best thing was, because I made a joke at the beginning they were less impressed than if I used a CT or Peek !!!

After getting Inside (by Daniel Madison), I have been practising using The Advocate (A pocket card index, basically) and now randomly ask people I know to verbally pick a card.

Newsagent lady went "Yeah, I've got one", and expected me to read her mind. I guessed Ace of Clubs, and it was right. Her reaction bought me enough time to get the corresponding card from my pocket and hide it under the charity box on the counter for an extra kick.

I only named a card because I felt the need to treat it like a joke and then do it properly after the abject failure.

Brightened up my lunchtime.

Well I had someone pick a card, did a few ACR effects with it, and then this guy said, 'can I have a card?'
So I said 'let's use this one...'
took the card and set up for a shapeshifter (I had no idea what card I was changing too) and asked him to name a card.
He said 'an Ace' - it was an ace.

'Does that work with any card?' he asked.

I cut the pack, he named a king (I did the shapeshifter from ace to a king).
I cut the pack, he named a queen (I did the shapeshifter from king to a queen).

I made an excuse to stop there, but was thinking I probably should have got him to pick six numbers from 1 to 49, right?

In all honesty, as he didn't name the suit, it was only a 1 in 13 chance -
so maybe there is something you could work from that...
but then that's repeated three times, so... maths expert anyone?

1 in 2,197.

Actually, in practice it may well be even smaller than that, because humans are biased against picking the same card twice, a bias a randomly shuffled deck of cards does not have.

Was it a genuinely shuffled deck? If it was in Si Stebbins or something of that nature, then he may have been intuiting your cuts.

Starving Stu wrote:What about when people exaggerate your effects later in retelling? I'm a bu**er for accepting full credit Does anyone else accept full credit for an exaggerated effect?

Hell to the yeah! People's capacity for self-delusion (and I include us magicians in this statement!) never ceases to amaze me. Be it a card trick, or more likely for me, a reading, it's very rare for someone to recall the experience correctly, more so with readinds. I like to think that it's down to the emotional investment they place in the effect, but even a simple card trick down the pub becomes THEY shuffled the deck when it was in fact me etc.

Last weekend I was doing some magic in a restaurant. One of the tables was a birthday party and the birthday girl wanted her mind read. I said "You're starsign is Libra". She was amazed. I was amazed that I got away with it!

Was it a genuinely shuffled deck?

Yeh...
no stebbins - just pure chance.
Pretty amazing, these stories are.

TheStoner wrote:Last weekend I was doing some magic in a restaurant. One of the tables was a birthday party and the birthday girl wanted her mind read. I said "You're starsign is Libra". She was amazed. I was amazed that I got away with it!

That's cheeky, I love it!

TheStoner wrote:Last weekend I was doing some magic in a restaurant. One of the tables was a birthday party and the birthday girl wanted her mind read. I said "You're starsign is Libra". She was amazed. I was amazed that I got away with it!

Lol! The holy grail of mind-reading solved!