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I've bombed horribly performing for people that walked up during an effect or two and heckled and all that good stuff. Working along I found a couple of effects that struck a cord with them and, if not entertaining to them, at least placated them. Handling people like that can suck, but pushing on is rewarding in itself. Keeping up confidence is key, and sometimes falling back on effects you have far more experience with can help.

Boyscout motto: Be prepared.

I've had a few times where dumb luck has made me appear incredible. You can never count on it, but when it happens... ooooo. At high school I was known for performing here and there throughout the day. I was the only student allowed playing cards at school, and my coat was heavier than a lot of backpacks from all the stuff I kept in there.

Sitting before English class one day I was practicing a coin sleight, minding my own business, when a guy walked up just as I "took" the half dollar with my right hand and he said that if I was a real magician I'd make that disappear right then. Really he was kidding, but it was all I could do not to laugh out loud. I looked him right in the eye, grabbed a pencil out of my bag with my left hand, getting rid of 50 cents of evidence in the process, and tapped the right hand before showing it empty. Simple, but it floored him to see a vanish on demand when I was off guard. Pure magic in his mind.

Another experience of pure luck had to do with a 16 card packet trick where a selected card is located by the spectator via magician's choice narrowing it down to one card. These very pushy guys in my class thought they had caught on to what I was doing, and they were right, but I said nothing as they put their card back in the pack, laid out the cards, and told me "Take these cards away. Leave those cards there..." and so on until there was just one, and by the dumbest luck it was their card. It blew them away, and I had done nothing. Then they did it again, and again it was their card. They had no idea what to say.

Of course, those were the same guys that got the little finger chopper out of my backpack when I was away from my desk and thought it was just a matter of slapping it down hard enough. One of them nearly broke his finger when he put it in there and hammered the blade down with his other hand. Thank God it wasn't sharp. I kept a closer eye on things around them after that.